


A Hundred Highways

by manic_intent



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Assassin!Billy, Burned out sniper!Goodnight, Dark, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, M/M, Main pairing is Goodnight x Billy, NOTE: Farquez is a side pairing, Pining, Polemical fiction, That modern AU where Sam puts together a strike team rather than defends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-24 04:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8357197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “I’m putting a team together,” said the past, squeezed onto a plastic chair in the kitchen that Goodnight had never bothered to finish assembling. Dusty boxes still squatted beside empty cabinets, full of spiderwebs and rusting pots. Goodnight located a clean cup behind a box of cereal, and another still racked in the dishwasher. Then he took a deep breath, and sat himself down at the table. Major Chisolm looked good, at least. He was buttoned up in one of the black shirts that he always favoured, silver cufflinks keeping the sleeves neatly in place. He’d hung up his felt hat by the door, and as such, seemed a touch unfinished. Older, yet familiar. Chisolm smiled, teeth bared, in the way he got whenever he was nervy about something. “A team?” Goodnight said finally, when Chisolm didn’t elaborate. “Hoping you’d come.” Chisolm pressed. “Pays well.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been thinking of trying to write a nonlinear story for a while, especially after reading Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven / Forsyth's Avenger. Hopefully this works out :3
> 
> Disclaimer: About Polemical Fiction: For those who are new to my longfics… almost all my chaptered work is political in some way or other, and I am a left-wing treehugger pacifist. What a lot of writing advice has in common (other than to practice and practice) is to write about things that you feel strongly about, and well, this is me as a writer. You’ve been warned.

2016

“I’m putting a team together,” said the past, squeezed onto a plastic chair in the kitchen that Goodnight had never bothered to finish assembling. Dusty boxes still squatted beside empty cabinets, full of spiderwebs and rusting pots. Goodnight located a clean cup behind a box of cereal, and another still racked in the dishwasher. Then he took a deep breath, and sat himself down at the table.

Major Chisolm looked good, at least. He was buttoned up in one of the black shirts that he always favoured, silver cufflinks keeping the sleeves neatly in place. He’d hung up his felt hat by the door, and as such, seemed a touch unfinished. Older, yet familiar. Chisolm smiled, teeth bared, in the way he got whenever he was nervy about something. 

“A team?” Goodnight said finally, when Chisolm didn’t elaborate. 

“Hoping you’d come.” Chisolm pressed. “Pays well.”

“Don’t need the money.” When Chisolm glanced around the poky, box-choked kitchen, Goodnight amended, “Don’t need _that_ kinda money.” 

“Seems like you’re looking to bunker up something fierce,” Chisolm said, though not unkindly. He touched his fingertips to the padded headphones on the kitchen table, next to the canned soup and beans, the bottled water, and the tupperware of bread. “Basement?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Fourth of July?” When Goodnight nodded slowly, Chisolm sighed. “You could put up one of them yard signs that they’ve been giving out to veterans who need them.” 

“Word don’t always get around,” Goodnight said, a little limply. Besides, in his opinion, if word _did_ get around, that wasn’t much better. He’d long had his fill of people coming by and being respectful, or worse, _sympathetic_. Made him feel like he was all broken down with nowhere else to go, on bad days. “I won’t be any use to you, Sam.” 

“We’d be going down south,” Chisolm said, as though he hadn’t heard. “Going after Bartholomew Bogue.” 

“El Chacal? Of the Bogue Cartel?” Goodnight raised his eyebrows. 

“The same.”

Goodnight rubbed a palm slowly over his face. He could already feel the hollowness pressing in, the echoing charge, the jagged memories, digging back. “Thought you left the CIA.”

“I did.” 

“Then what? You doin’ contract work now?” 

“In a sense.”

“What d’you mean, ‘in a sense’? The CIA’s best fixer now freelances, ‘in a sense’? What, you take trickle-down work?”

“It means that yes, I did contract work for a while, and yes, I retired,” Chisolm said evenly. “And yes, I came back from retirement for a job. That I’d like to get your help with.”

“And I said that I won’t be any use to you.” 

“You’ve still got a membership down at the local range,” Chisolm pointed out. “Owner speaks highly of you. You’re a regular, he says. And seems he’s seen you practice. ‘Like being guided by God’, his words.” 

“Practice is one thing.” Chisolm had done his research. Of course. “Gun range helps some days,” Goodnight added defensively. “Some days not.” There was something restful about just hunkering down with headphones and blasting away at a neat little target, keeping his hand in, compartmentalising away the smell of gunpowder into a bloodless game of numbers. 

Some days. 

“Fact is,” Chisolm said, even more gently, “you’re still the best sniper I’ve ever met, anywhere in the world, and I need you on this job, Goody. Half a million up front, five million after.” 

“Who the hell’s willing to pay that kinda money to cap Bogue?” 

“She’s willing to pay far more than that,” Chisolm corrected. “And it’s personal.”

“For you? Or for her?” 

“Let’s call it both.” 

“Ain’t never a good reason to start something like this. ‘Her’? Who’s ‘her’?” 

“That’d be Ms Emma Cullen,” Chisolm said. “née Mortensen.” 

“The petroleum company?”

“That’s right.” 

“Hell, if she’s the heiress, I think you’re being stiffed on five mil, or whatever she’s payin’,” Goodnight said, frowning. “What did el Chacal do to her? Murder her father?” 

“Close. The husband. They were on holiday in Mexico City. Anonymous, but Bogue must’ve gotten wind of it. Probably was looking to kidnap the both of them, maybe get Mortensen Inc to shell out a hefty ransom for its CFO. There was an incident. Emma survived, her husband didn’t. I’m not surprised that you haven’t heard about it. They’ve kept it out of the news.” 

“So she wants to go to war.”

“That’s right.” 

“And she’s talked you into it.”

“Took some doing,” Chisolm conceded evenly. “But she’s real persuasive.” 

Given Chisolm’s past history with Bogue, this probably hadn’t actually taken _that_ much doing. “The Company know you’re doing this?”

“No, and it’s none of their business.” Chisolm said calmly, as if he hadn’t just proposed entering a foreign country as an assassin-for-hire. 

“How many men d’you have? You’re gonna need an army, goin’ after Bogue.” 

“It’ll be a surgical job. I’m thinking seven people, max. In and out.” 

Goodnight wasn’t fooled. “ _Seven_? That’s a suicide run.” 

“Maybe. I’ve got a plan.”

“Oh you do, do you? To take on an entire drug cartel with just _seven people_?” Goodnight shook his head. “Sam, you’re tired of livin’. Let this go. Tell Ms Cullen you’re sorry about her husband, but blood for blood ain’t ever done nobody any goddamned good. You can walk away—“ 

“Billy’s going,” Chisolm said, as maddeningly mild as ever. When Goodnight flinched and said nothing, Chisolm leaned over the table and patted his knuckles. “You’ve got my number. We ship out in a couple of days. Give me your answer tomorrow morning, latest.” He rose from his seat, and tucked the chair in awkwardly when Goodnight didn’t move. “Take care of yourself, Goody,” Chisolm said finally. 

When Goodnight heard the door close, he pushed out a shaky breath. In the silence of the little kitchen, it sounded like defeat.

2014

Goodnight had never understood why his parents had given him the name that they did. It had been hell going through high school, and escaping to the Army hadn’t helped, leastways, not until he’d demonstrated his uncanny aim with high calibre rifles. It’d been unintentionally ironic since Iraq. Lord knew that a good night’s sleep had been few and far between. All for an unwinnable war.

He woke up facedown on the pillow and panicked in the smothering warmth. Flailing twisted him nearly off the bed, but for the blankets tangled up over his knees, and he ended up with his head against the sideboard, wide-eyed, gasping. The space in the bed beside him was empty, long gone cold. Goodnight sat up in bed, sucking in a thin lungful of air, then he exhaled, and got shakily to his feet, rubbing his eyes. A coffee might set him to rights. He washed his face in the sink, then dried off and started to head down the steps, soft-footed on the edge against the wall so as not to trigger any creaking. 

Goodnight was nearly at the kitchen when he heard music playing, crackly and turned low. French. It was Édith Piaf’s _La Vie en Rose_ , played over a radio, static buzzing in loudly at uneven intervals, scratching out some of the words. Goodnight peeked cautiously around the doorway. Billy was at the kitchen table, a small radio that Goodnight didn’t recognise set by his elbow. He hadn’t changed from the loose shirt and track pants he’d worn to bed, his long hair bound haphazardly behind his head, his eyes closed. The song wound down into uneven, hissing bursts, then began to play again, as staticky as before. Billy let it play, occasionally noting something down on his phone.

This. This was—

He was sure that he hadn’t made a sound, but Billy abruptly glanced up, his eyes narrowing for a moment before he relaxed. He shut the radio off, setting his phone down beside it. “Did I wake you?”

“No, uh. Came down for some water.” Goodnight waited for Billy to explain. Lie, maybe. But Billy merely nodded and got up from the chair, circling over to the sink to get a cup. “Didn’t know we had a radio. What’s wrong with Spotify?”

Billy shot him a thoughtful look over a shoulder, then poured water from the kitchen jug into the cup and pushed it across the table. “Nothing,” he said, as annoyingly succinct as always whenever he didn’t want to be pushed on something. When Goodnight wavered, wondering whether to try anyway, Billy rounded the table, tugging Goodnight over. Just like that, he was caught fast. A mouse, a cat. 

God, Billy was _handsome_. Even here, framed by Goodnight’s poky little kitchen, under the cloudy lights, with a faded shirt over his lean body and those old pants slung low over narrow hips. Billy was unselfconsciously gorgeous the way a hunting cat was gorgeous, all raw danger and sex and stillness. Goodnight made a strangled noise and leaned over, fumbling the first kiss, licking eagerly into the next, hands clutching at Billy’s hips, tugging him flush. Billy hummed, deep and low, a hunting-cat sound, kissing him back. Elegant fingers skated over his cheek to the back of his neck. Into his hair. 

“Billy,” Goodnight gasped, high and tight, then whined, “oh, _oh_ m’god,” as Billy hummed again and pushed his free hand down the front of Goodnight’s pants. 

Even like this, in the dying hours of the night, Billy was like a private fantasy made flesh, all that athlete’s muscle, that firm, perfect ass, those _eyes_. Merciless, pinning Goodnight down to be devoured. He let Billy back him up to the table, next to the ignored cup, let Billy twitch down his pants and underwear, his heels linking up over the small of Billy’s back to urge him on. Fingers teased down, cupping his balls, squeezing lightly, and Billy laughed as Goodnight whined again, stretched brittle. “ _C’mon_.” 

“No condoms in the kitchen.” 

“We’re clean.” 

“No lube, either.” 

Goodnight tugged impatiently at Billy’s shoulders. “You say that like you didn’t spend the evenin’ fuckin’ me into the _bed_ , fuck—“ 

Instead of taking the hint, Billy cocked his head, unnervingly sober. “This isn’t a good idea,” he said quietly, his free hand slipping up to Goodnight’s hip, stroking his thigh. 

“Yeah?” 

“You never could leave anything well alone,” Billy said, with a terrible sort of wry affection, and this time, when Goodnight kicked a heel into the small of his back, he leaned up to kiss, long and loud and brutal, teeth pressing against Goodnight’s lower lip. 

Dimly, Goodnight could hear Billy fumbling with his own clothes, then those lovely long fingers were pulling him efficiently to the edge of the table, and Billy was pressing _in_ , as efficient as ever, as ruthless as ever. The lube and stretch from hours back weren’t much help, just the way Goodnight liked it. Pain had always given him clarity. A radio he didn’t recognise. A song on short-wave, no station, marred by precise ‘static’. Goodnight bent his mouth against Billy’s neck to taste the pulse there, the echo of his heart beat. Billy was balls-deep now, Goodnight’s thighs clenched tight over his waist, nails digging down into Billy’s broad, curved back. 

“You think too much,” Billy murmured, not even breathless, and he rocked forward when Goodnight started to laugh in brittle pulses. 

The table skittered back and slapped against the side of the sink as Billy grunted and tucked his palms under Goodnight’s ass to haul him up onto his cock with each thrust, shaking the cheap table against the cabinets. Billy always knew how to touch him, where, _when_. Right now, Goodnight was up for being taken apart and Billy already knew it, angling to get just the right spot, sinking his teeth into Goodnight’s neck when he got there. Pleasure like this always felt like an ambush. Goodnight had never learned how to just deal with it, ride it out, and the things Goodnight couldn’t deal with he always instinctively tried to run away from. Billy held him down, forced him to open up, raking him towards orgasm. His teeth tasted coppery against Goodnight’s mouth, his hands clenched tight enough to bruise over Goodnight’s hips. 

“Nearly there,” Billy whispered, not even out of breath, supremely controlled to the last, nuzzling Goodnight’s jaw. “You’re doing so well.” Goodnight was gasping out hoarse sobs, twisting against Billy’s grip. He couldn’t help himself. Didn’t deserve this. “Shh, shh,” Billy murmured, and kissed Goodnight’s cheek. “Give it to me, Goody.” Getting tipped off the edge always came as a shock. Goodnight buried his face against Billy’s neck, shaky with relief. Billy waited it out, quieting down, stroking his palms up and down Goodnight’s back until he stopped trembling. 

“All right now?” Billy asked, quiet and patient. Just a little hitch to his breathing. 

“Y-yeah,” Goodnight choked out. Billy waited, nuzzling him, petting him until Goodnight cleared his throat, steady again. “Yeah, c’mon.” This part was usually quick. Tonight, though, Billy drew back, inscrutable, studying him for a moment before kissing him, open-mouthed, rocking up. Slow and steady. Goodnight tried to breathe, dizzy again. There’d been a reckoning after all. He shouldn’t have said anything. Should’ve pretended not to see the radio. Should’ve turned around and gone right back upstairs. He was shaking again when Billy finished, a wet, hot burst that would turn tacky by the morning. 

“Get you cleaned up,” Billy said, as though he’d heard, and Goodnight let himself get led over to the bathroom. He calmed down eventually, once they were in bed, curled together. 

“You never could leave anything well alone,” Billy said again, a gentle sort of warning, and Goodnight nodded in agreement, because he’d never been able to lie to the people he loved. Tomorrow, in the morning, the space beside him on the bed would be cold for good.

2016

Chisolm’s safehouse was two hours out of Sacramento, on a corner of one of Mortensen Inc’s oilfields. There was a small private airfield and a hangar within the second ring of security, the heavily armed guards waving Goodnight’s battered old Camaro towards a squat office block attached to the hangar. There were other cars in the covered parking area behind it: a boxy little Toyota, a nondescript Ford sedan, a large black hog of a Harley, a sporty silver Mercedes convertible. Tucked in the far corner was a familiar, sleek yellow Ducati. Goodnight parked on autopilot and spent a few minutes leaning his forehead against the wheel, trying to get his heart rate under control. Billy had always been right about this part of him. Once an idea took hold, it ate at him until he had to see it through, Goddamnit.

“You made it,” Chisolm greeted him at the door to the second floor. Identical black shirt and dress pants, but the air conditioning meant being able to pair on one of his ubiquitous black vests. Familiarity helped. Goodnight managed a wan smile. “Where’s your gear?” 

It was in the boot, just in case. “Didn’t say I was signin’ up,” Goodnight said slowly, testing out the script he’d practiced on the long drive here. 

“Hell, this is a long drive outta Sacramento just to tell me ‘no’ to my face,” Chisolm said, raising his eyebrows. Goodnight tried not to make it too obvious that he was peeking over Chisolm’s shoulders. “Pretty sure I gave you my number.” 

Behind Chisolm was a wide open space, well-lit by banks of fluorescent lights. There was a workspace and a pinned-up map, sleek silver computers, and some stranger lounging in a chair with his boots up on a desk, staring over curiously, freckled and pale under three days’ stubble, pistols worn openly at his hips. “Sam,” Goodnight dropped his voice, “I thought you were hirin’ _professionals_.” 

Chisolm grinned toothily at him. “And I am. That’s Josh Faraday. Fastest draw with a gun I ever did see.” 

“You’re shiftin’ for a war with a _cartel_ , not lookin’ to win some kinda Mexican standoff,” Goodnight protested. “The hell d’you think you’re doin’?” 

“I always know what I’m doing,” Chisolm said, unfazed. “Billy’s ‘round the back. Want me to get your stuff from your car?”

Chisolm always did know him too damned well. Goodnight sighed. “Hold that thought, all right?” He crabbed past Faraday, head down, pretending not to notice the gunslinger’s obvious curiosity. There were offices built into the back wall, two with doors ajar, one closed up. Goodnight could guess which one Billy was in. He knocked. 

“Door isn’t locked,” Billy said, crisp as ever. For a moment, Goodnight imagined himself backing off, beating a quick retreat around Chisolm all the way back to Sacramento, but in the end, he let himself in. He’d say his piece, and—

“Shit!” Goodnight yelped, as he walked right into Billy, just past the door. Billy nudged the door closed and shoved Goodnight up on the plasterboard wall right beside it, inscrutable, intense. Goodnight could feel his mouth go dry, just being this close. That faint, familiar cologne, the beautifully tailored clothes: today a tapered pinstripe charcoal suit, over an open-necked pink shirt, black gloves, twisted up in Goodnight’s collar. 

Billy smiled, that sharp-edged, faint smile that he tended to wear when the world was silent, and Goodnight felt the script he’d been preparing slip away forgotten. He hauled Billy over blindly, and the kiss seemed somehow accidental, teeth everywhere, both of them fitting awkwardly against each other until Billy’s gloved hand crept up around the back of his neck. “You _left_ ,” Goodnight found himself hissing, in between kisses, “ _you left_.” 

“Shh,” Billy murmured in response, which made Goodnight kiss him harder, maul him, scrabble at his impeccable collar, his neatly bound hair. “Shh.” Goodnight calmed down, eventually, trembling, trapped between Billy and his arms and the wall. “Shh.”

“Fuck you,” Goodnight said hoarsely, and Billy shook with laughter against him, silent, ruthless. 

“We’ll see.”

“No, _seriously_ ,” Goodnight snarled, because anger was easier and more dignified than begging, “ _you left_.” 

“And you,” Billy said mildly, “called your CIA friends.” 

“Only afterwards!”

“You were going to call them anyway.” 

“I know about what people do with shortwave radio,” Goodnight snapped at him. “I’ve gone several tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, I… Sam told me you’re a… a _contract killer_ , a top flight one, they didn’t even know you were living in the States and… the name you gave me wasn’t even _real_ —the hell did you come lookin’ for me in the first place?” 

“Finished?” Billy asked quietly, pressed close to his throat. 

“Fuck you,” Goodnight muttered sullenly. Vaguely, he was aware that he should be pushing free, possibly try to start a punchup, but it was nice, like this, corralled. 

“It was a mistake,” Billy said softly.

“Which bit? Getting caught?” 

“Getting close,” Billy corrected, and kissed Goodnight on the cheek when he tensed up. Then Billy pushed himself back, settling into the high-backed swivel chair before an open laptop at a desk. Its screen was full of little black windows of scrolling code. “Chisolm said that you’d be here, but I didn’t believe him.” 

“That why you’re here?” Goodnight asked unthinkingly, but Billy merely smiled his inscrutable, tight smile again. 

“It’s good to see you,” Billy said carefully, painfully impersonal all of a sudden, and turned back to the laptop. The air in the room felt like it was draining out. Goodnight was dizzy as he backed off, closed the door, and was relieved to see that Faraday had made himself unobtrusive. Only Chisolm remained, if at a respectful distance, leaning up against one of the glass windows. Goodnight took a deep breath and marched over. 

“I’m in.” 

“Good. Get settled. Rooms are upstairs, take your pick. The boss will be here soon for the debrief. And Goody?” Chisolm added, as Goodnight started to head out for his gear. “Welcome back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story title from Johnny Cash’s posthumous album, American V: A Hundred Highways, which IMO is a very Goodnight album :3 
> 
> I loved Lee Byung-hun in RED 2, so I’m kinda mashing up that character for modern!Billy. Further ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZpWLuAc7LE
> 
> Sigh. I was planning on writing Nano this year so… idk if I’ll finish this or cut it short or aaa
> 
> Shortwave radio:  
> http://lifehacker.com/5961035/how-to-listen-to-real-spy-broadcasts-right-now
> 
> PTSD and 4th of July fireworks:  
> http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/military-vets-ptsd-4th-fireworks-can-be-nerve-wracking-n602526


	2. Chapter 2

2017

“The thing is,” Faraday said, as Vasquez fussed around him in their booth in the empty indoor range, “life is generally a trash fire.”

This didn’t even give Vasquez pause, as he lined up the loaded pistols on the bench. “Yeah?” 

Beyond the bench, in the gray concrete room, racks of white target cards sat over rails on the ground, their vaguely human-shaped black silhouettes clean and crisp, contoured with pale lines and numbers. Faraday swallowed, and Vasquez seemed to pretend not to notice. First day back at a gun range, and it already felt like he'd worn out his welcome. “Well, uh, y’see,” Faraday said awkwardly, “like uh, this country, and what’s been happening lately, and uh, people like you.”

“People like me, _guero_?” Vasquez inquired, though his lip curled up in feral amusement. Tall and rangy and handsome in a lupine sort of way, Vasquez was dressed down today, just like Faraday, in a loose gray shirt and old black jeans, deceptively normal. Like most of the people Faraday seemed to be associating with nowadays, fuck. Goddamned Chisolm and his ‘jobs’. 

“Given that the current President _probably_ got elected because a surprising number of people _really_ don’t like Mexicans—“

“Eh,” Vasquez shrugged. “He not _my_ President. He _your_ President. You vote?” 

“We were kinda in Mexico at the time, remember? Ironically.” 

“Could have vote early.” 

“Needed an excuse to do that kinda thing in my state.”

“‘Overseas on business’ no’ an excuse?” Vasquez smirked. 

“Yeah, well, given I wasn’t even supposed to leave the country,” Faraday grumbled, “it kinda wasn’t. Would’ve made fun reading for the ballot peeps, though. ‘Had to go overseas to murder a drug lord and start a mini war with his cartel’.” 

“They maybe give you a medal for that.” 

“Should’ve made _me_ President for that.” 

“You?” Vasquez scoffed.

“Can’t be much worse than the current one.”

“… True,” Vasquez allowed. “Low bar.” 

“That’s what we’re good at lately. Setting the low bar.” Faraday picked up one of the pistols, weighing it in his palm. His hands were sweaty from nervousness. His chest was starting to ache again, even under the painkillers. Still, at least his grip seemed steady enough. Maybe. He took a deep breath, set the guns down, and wiped his palms down over his jeans. 

“You stalling,” Vasquez observed, leaning against the side of the booth, his own pair of ear muffs in his hands. “Get it over with, _cabrón_.”

“And you completely fail at sympathy,” Faraday bit back. “ _Awful_. I’m an injured man. Clawed my way back from the brink of death. Saw my life flash by before my eyes—“ 

“Oh? I hear you only see memorable things. Must have been quick. Pick up the gun. Someone once always tell me how good he is with guns. Always running his mouth. Now he shy?” 

“Just… getting back into the swing of things,” Faraday muttered, stung. “I _did_ get shot several times _and_ nearly got blown up. I’m getting a certain kinda vibe, y’know, did you watch that terrible James Bond film called Skyfall, which had a really _rocking_ Adele song but not much else to it—“ 

Vasquez could move like a viper. Faraday tensed up as he felt the big man press up flush against his back, and had to force himself not to jab back with an elbow. Vasquez set the electronic ear muffs over Faraday’s head, then adjusted his own before curling his arms low over Faraday’s belly. Waiting. No avoiding it now. Faraday wiped his hands down over his jeans again, and he felt Vasquez hum something against him, tuneless. The weight of the pistol felt familiar in his grip. It wasn’t Ethel or Maria: he’d left those two locked in a safe back home for better days. The nameless handgun was a Glock 17, not his first preference by far. 

Faraday lowered the pistol. “I’m not really into Glocks.” 

Vasquez didn’t even miss a beat. “Not a bad gun. Used by many police, everywhere. Good reason too.” 

“I’m more of a Beretta man.” 

“That how I know you have no taste, _guero_ ,” Vasquez said, his lips pressed close to the back of Faraday’s neck, all warm breath. “Best pistol in world, made by CZUB.” 

“The CZs? Pssh. I’ve tried the 75B. Who the hell likes three-dot sights? Tell me you at least blacked that shit out with some paint.” 

“You stalling again. Want to try another day?” Vasquez inquired, and the gentleness of his tone was what finally did it. For all his complaints, Faraday actually fucking hated sympathy. He cocked the gun, braced himself and aimed. The first couple of shots squeezed off went wild, dotting the edge of the target card, and then Faraday was just firing wildly, emptying the magazine, teeth bared, snarling into the recoil, pulling the trigger until fingers locked over his wrists and gently pulled the emptied gun out of his grip. 

“Ff… fucking Glocks,” Faraday said unsteadily, as Vasquez set the gun down on the bench. “I knew someone who shot himself by accident with one once. No thumb action safety, finger in the trigger when holstering the gun, _bam_. Instant Glock leg. You’d think somebody would’a got sued, but seems in this country you can sue somebody for making really hot coffee but not for making a stupid gun…” He trailed off into the warm silence, breathing deeply until he calmed back down. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Vasquez chuckled, then let go, stepping back. “Not bad. You hit target.” 

“Yeah, right. For a generous definition of ‘hit’.” 

“Some of target,” Vasquez allowed. “Probably would have scared real person.” 

Despite himself, Faraday let out a hoarse laugh. “Did I mention how terrible you are at sympathy? You could’ve done a Billy, lied straight out and told me the gun was malfunctioning.” 

“Oh? You would believe?” 

“Probably not,” Faraday admitted, “but I might’ve felt better about everything for a bit.” Maria and Ethel were going to have to stay locked up for a long while more. “Fuck.” 

“Want to try another gun?”

“No!” Faraday snarled, then he took another deep breath when Vasquez merely raised his eyebrows. “Nevermind. Fucking… let’s go. Lunch. Let’s get lunch.” 

“You will heal,” Vasquez told him, as blithely frank as ever. “Someday maybe you shoot like the devil again. You already cheat death once. Maybe you cheat the odds again, no?”

Faraday didn’t want to answer that, not with the air still thick with cordite. “We’ll order in. Pizza or something. What with the mass deportations right now, going out to get some Thai might cut your visit down real quick.” 

Vasquez sniffed, but clearly decided to let the issue lie. “Only if you no add pineapple.” 

“Who the hell eats pizza without pineapple?” 

“I give up on you, _güerito_.”

2016

Faraday tried not to look _too_ curious when the newcomer lit out. He’d gone for a leak and come back just in time to see the stranger disappear down the stairs. Strange, nervous-looking guy, bit weaselly looking, though even under the rumpled shirt and jeans there was a straight-backed kinda military bearing that no amount of retirement could erase.

“Ex-Army?” Faraday asked, settling back into his chair and palming a deck from his jacket. By the window, Chisolm nodded. “Old pal?”

“Could say that.” Judging from the people who'd shown up, Faraday guessed that Chisolm wasn't the sort to give up on old friends... or old debts.

“I’ve heard of ‘Billy Rocks’—albeit under another name—and Jack Horne. Do I know this guy?”

“Probably,” Chisolm smiled his weird, toothy grin. “Name of Goodnight Robicheaux.” 

Faraday whistled. “The Angel of Death?” 

“Now, he don’t like that name no more.” 

“You don’t get to erase names that come with that kinda history,” Faraday pointed out. “Ain’t he one o’ the most successful snipers the Army’s ever minted?” 

“Names like that make their mark on good men,” Chisolm said mildly. “Usually in the form of scars. Now we need Goody on this mission, so I’ll trouble you to be civil. Don’t make me regret digging you out of max-sec.”

“Hey, I can be civil, _sir_ ,” Faraday drawled. “Just not so sure about sharing air with a twitchy sniper.” 

“He’ll be fine,” Chisolm said briskly, and indeed by the time Emma Cullen showed up for the debrief in the meeting room, Goodnight seemed to have calmed down some… at least until you noticed the slightly glazed look to his eyes. Fucking wonderful. A Vicodin habit, maybe? Worse? Faraday was going to say something out aloud when Billy slipped into the room, frowned at Goodnight, and pulled up a chair beside him, leaning over to murmur something that Faraday couldn’t catch. Goodnight shook his head dreamily, and glanced up at the ceiling as Red Harvest came in, Jack Horne behind him.

Emma glanced dubiously at Goodnight, but seemed to decide not to comment. Instead, she fired up her MacBook and started to go briskly over the Plan, the Deal, and the Map, all of which Faraday had already studied at length. He tuned her out, opting to watch his fellow madmen instead. Most of them were ex-military of some sort other than Horne, who was ex-Ranger, and Billy, who hadn’t been anywhere near friendly but didn’t seem the sort. Red Harvest was a Green Beret and looked the part, taciturn and poised—

“Who’s the seventh?” Faraday asked out aloud, when Emma had finished her lecture. 

“Seventh?” Emma looked confused, glancing over at her friend/secretary/gentleman caller/??, some reedy young man whose name Faraday could never quite place. 

“The last member of our team is already in Mexico,” Chisolm offered. “He’s familiar with the territory and with the cartels.” 

“Law enforcement?” Goodnight asked, blinking slowly, as if trying to focus. Well, that was impressive. Faraday hadn’t been exactly sure if Goodnight was in the same _universe_ right now, let alone the same mental wavelength.

“No. More of an independent contractor.” 

“That makes all of us,” Horne said, in his weirdly pitchy voice. “Life makes independent contractors of everyone.”

“… o-kay,” Faraday said slowly. “I’m gonna pretend that I didn’t hear that, just so that I can keep clinging on to the illusion that none of you are crazy.” Red Harvest frowned at him, and Goodnight blinked, but Billy ignored him, intent on the man beside him. 

“I’ll fly all of you in to the rendezvous point tomorrow,” Emma said crisply. “Your advances will be transferred tonight. The remainder will be forwarded after Bogue is dead.”

“We gonna have to cut his head off and put it in a freezer box?” Faraday inquired, waiting for Emma to flinch. Instead, she stared him down. 

“Not at all, Mister Faraday. I intend to shoot him myself. Which is why I said that _I_ would be flying all of you to Mexico.” 

“Now hold up,” Goodnight said, a little alarmed, even as Horne wheezed, “well, that ain’t no place for a lil’ lady—“ 

“She’s the boss,” Chisolm cut in firmly. “And she’s the one paying us to be here.” 

“We still get paid if she gets done in south of the border?” Faraday pointed out. “I didn’t sign up for no babysitting session.” 

“I can take care of myself,” Emma said, her tone wintry. “And yes, in the event of my untimely demise, should Bogue also go to the grave, my lawyers have been briefed to release the advance to you or your nominated next of kin. I propose that all of you get some rest. It will be an early flight.”

2014

It was a red-eye flight, because the deep night wasn’t so bad. An empty blue sky, high above the clouds, sometimes gave Goodnight a bad turn. Chisolm had offered to come by Sacramento, but the quiet house had seemed too claustrophobic all of a sudden, and somehow, wildly, Goodnight had thought that running would do him some good. He should’ve known better. Wasn’t like he didn’t have experience with how retreat like this was intimately pointless. He spent the flight with his hand clenched around the orange pill bottle in his coat, and relaxed only when the plane landed in Richmond International.

He feverishly checked his phone when reception kicked back in. No messages, not even an email. Goodnight headed out to Arrivals in a daze, dully glad that he hadn’t bothered with luggage. Chisolm seemed mildly surprised to see him, and was reflexively quiet after initial greetings as they headed out to his car. Yet another Ford sedan. 

“You can take the cop out of the police force, but not the Ford out of the cop,” Goodnight said, too wan for humour, but Chisolm chuckled dutifully anyway. 

“I was an MP. We don’t do Fords.”

“Cop’s a cop, military or otherwise.” That was all Goodnight could manage for pleasantries, and he stared out of the window for the rest of the drive. He’d kinda vaguely thought that they were heading to Langley, somehow, and was a little disappointed when Chisolm pulled them up in some kinda warehouse district instead. They ended up in what had probably once been a foreman’s office, cleared of all furniture but a bolted-down table and a couple of chairs. 

“Kinda thought this sort of set up only worked for the movies,” Goodnight said, blinking.

“Sometimes the CIA likes to play to type,” Chisolm conceded. “Makes it easier when everyone thinks they know the script.” He pushed a manila folder across the desk. 

It was Billy—of course it was Billy. Goodnight didn’t recognise the name on the file, or any of the photos: mostly younger, blurry pictures. Billy looked strange clean-shaven, with short hair: somehow all sharp angles, _younger_ , so much younger. He was unsmiling in every shot, and often out of focus. South Korean. _Something_ was true. 

“He tangled with an ex-colleague of mine a year ago,” Chisolm said, leaning forward slightly over the desk.

Goodnight swallowed. “‘Round August?” Billy had gone on an abrupt ‘work trip’, which were often intermittent through the year, and short. August’s had taken a few weeks, though. 

“Yeah. You might’ve seen some of it on the news.” 

“Some kinda uh, missing Cold War weapon?” Goodnight’s heart sank. “Did he steal it?”

“No. The CIA file on Han is sketchy as all hell, but as far as we know, he was working to destroy it.” 

“That’s… good? Isn’t it?” When Chisolm didn’t answer, Goodnight pointedly closed the file. “He’s gone, Sam. Up and left.” 

“Not surprised. Good job, by the way, recognising that shortwave trick.” 

Goodnight bit down on the instinctive retort on his tongue. “You could’ve emailed me this file.” 

“I _did_ offer to fly down to Sacramento,” Chisolm reminded him gently. “Goody. You all right? I know this is coming over as a big shock—“

“Actually it ain’t,” Goodnight cut in bitterly. “I kinda… somehow I always knew somethin’ was a little off. Wasn’t just how flush he was, with his ‘consulting’ job, hell, I knew IT consultants get paid heaps, took that at face value. Wasn’t even how we first met at the goddamned _gun range_ , how he pretended to be an average shot the first time until I told him I could tell he was holdin’ back…” He trailed off uncomfortably, flushed, staring down at his hands. Should’ve taken a pill during the flight. 

“Then?” Chisolm asked. “What tipped you off?” 

What could Goodnight say? That the blurry, shitty photos in the file didn’t go anywhere near doing Billy any justice? That no photos ever really could? Six years, and some nights Goodnight used to lie awake, silently incredulous at his good fortune. Some luck that had eventually turned out to be… but _six years?_ What had _that_ been about? “I don’t know what his game is,” Goodnight said finally. “That’s partly why I called you.” 

Chisolm sighed. “Goody.” 

“No, seriously. He stayed… uh, we’ve known each other for _years_. But it ain’t like I’ve got any money to steal, or anything valuable, or had any real secrets to tell.”

A palm pressed carefully over his knuckles. “As far as we can tell, Han’s left the country. Possibly on a job. Private plane, logged a flight to Tijuana.”

“Tijuana? Where _in_ Tijuana?” Were there even any direct flights from Virginia to Tijuana? 

“Let it go, Goody.” Chisolm patted his knuckles. “The person you called ‘Billy’ wasn’t real. We don’t think that he was… after you uh, professionally, in any way, but… the man he actually _is_ , is dangerous. Far more dangerous than either of us. Read that file. It’s all we’ve got on our end.” He started to get up from the table, then he hesitated. “If I could help you with something else… if you needed a word in somewhere—“

“No thanks,” Goodnight said, a little too curtly, and forced himself to smile. It didn’t really work. “Appreciate the help. I owe you one, Sam.”

“Hold that thought,” Chisolm said wryly, and clapped Goodnight on the shoulder on his way out.

Alone in the room, Goodnight fumbled the pill bottle out of his pocket. Taking just one was tempting, taking the whole set was fractionally more appealing—if only for a second. He wasn’t that far gone yet. The truth wasn’t going to be that hard to take, especially since it’d been prodding and prodding at him for _years_. He’d just chosen not to listen. In the end, Goodnight dry-swallowed just one of the white tablets, made himself pocket the rest, and closed the file, waiting for the world to dim out around the edges. 

“Not like you didn’t see this happenin’,” Goodnight said out aloud, to himself and to the world. It wasn’t so much a lie as an accusation. 

_You never could leave anything well alone_ , he heard Billy say in his head, again with that gentle warning. Exhaling, Goodnight started to flick through the file, slowly at first, then skipping over to 2008. Billy had vanished from the records there, last seen in Mombasa, and the file promptly thinned out, with only a few notes here and there, all suspected jobs, no proof. An honest-to-Gods _assassin_. 

“Not like you didn’t think it was too good to be true,” Goodnight murmured, though he hadn’t, not near the end, when he’d cautiously decided that maybe, just maybe, he’d finally just somehow gotten _that_ lucky. Life was always a ruthless teacher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Refs:
> 
> Yes you need ear protection when shooting indoors: http://www.shootingandsafety.com/best-ear-protection-for-shooting/ yes, some earmuffs (like the Howard Leights) block out loud noises but still let you hear normal conversation, apparently: http://www.howardleight.com/ear-protection/sound-management/electronic-ear-muffs  
> All my gun commentary is from gunsandammo.com lol.  
> More information about (American) Absentee voting: https://www.usa.gov/absentee-voting  
> The New Yorker imagined what Trump’s first term would be like: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/president-trumps-first-term  
> John Oliver on the ophoid crisis (needs vpn) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o or alternatively, TIME has an article on it http://time.com/4542105/john-oliver-opioids-last-week-tonight/


	3. Chapter 3

2016

Billy found Goodnight on the roof, smoking. It was a warm night, unseasonably so, but the nicotine helped. Didn’t help as much as Vicodin, but Goodnight probably hadn’t packed enough of that for a long trip, let alone a _stressful_ long trip, and pawning cigarettes off one of the guardhouse staff was going to have to do.

“Should be sleeping,” Billy told him, settling down at arm’s length, his back and elbows pressed against the safety rail. 

“Tried,” Goodnight admitted. 

The room he’d picked at random had been next to Horne’s, and the man’s snoring sounded like trucks rumbling down an ancient highway. Wasn’t normally a problem—Goodnight had done several tours in the Army, after all—but twitchy as he’d been all day, it hadn’t helped. After an hour lying on the bed, staring at nothing and halfheartedly trying to jack off to the memory of the kiss in the afternoon, Goodnight had given up and washed his face and skulked up top. He’d always felt better perched on a vantage point, anyway. 

“Why aren’t _you_ sleepin’?” Goodnight threw back, when Billy didn’t say anything. 

“Tried,” Billy conceded, though he was expressionless. He held out his hand, and after a moment’s pause, Goodnight grudgingly handed over the cigarette. Billy smoked the same way he did everything: with elegant economy, exhaling upwards into the cloudy night in a gritty stream. 

“Didn’t know you smoked.” 

“Could say the same." Billy paused, and glanced up at the sky. "You shouldn't be here."

Goodnight bristled. "I've got as much a right to be here as you do." 

Billy reached into his jacket’s inner pocket, palming out a familiar orange pill bottle, dangling it reproachfully before him. “Goody.”

“Oh, for…! You _don’t_ get to take that tone with me,” Goodnight hissed, making a grab for the bottle. Billy sidestepped neatly, even managing to grind out the cigarette under his heel, tossing the bottle to his other hand as Goodnight lunged. He moved like quicksilver, always just out of reach, effortless, evading until Goodnight gave up, out of breath and red-faced.

“You’re a… fuckin’ _asshole_ ,” Goodnight gasped. “Give that back, _c’mon_. What is this, grade school?”

“You’ve been clean for years,” Billy said quietly. “Goody, you know better. Where did you even get this?” 

“ _You’re_ the one who first showed me how to access the black market on the deep web,” Goodnight shot back. “I should’ve fuckin’ _guessed_ about you, at that point.” 

“Which dealer did you get this from?”

“It’s the real thing, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not an idiot.” Goodnight narrowed his eyes when Billy merely stared. “No, I didn’t use _your_ people. Would they have even sold anythin’ to me at that point?” 

“How many a day?” 

“You don’t get to lecture me—“ Goodnight began, then yelped as he found himself pinned against the safety rail, Billy’s hand curled tight in his collar. 

Bastard’s voice didn’t even change up. “Goody. How many?”

“How about you fuck yourself,” Goodnight retorted, with a savage sort of satisfaction. When Billy’s lip curled, Goodnight challenged, “What the hell could you do to me anyway? Hurt me?” He laughed, a harsh bark. “Hurt me some more?” 

Billy’s eyes widened fractionally. Then he carefully let go of Goodnight’s shirt, straightening the collar. The bottle was nowhere to be seen, and the initial burst of Goodnight’s anger was starting to fade into embarrassment. Admittedly, embarrassing himself in front of Billy was nothing new. “I thought that leaving would be for the best.” Billy said neutrally. 

“Yeah?”

“Doubt you would have liked me turning your garden into a warzone with the FBI,” Billy pointed out, all familiar, bone-dry wit. Goodnight tried not to be charmed, but with Billy pressed so close, it was futile. Again. 

“I wasn’t that fond of them tomato plants.” At least he wasn’t getting hard, or something utterly pathetic. Goodnight Robicheaux, forever locating the lowest bar. “You could’ve talked to me.”

“And said what? You have good instincts. The moment I saw that you understood what the radio really was—“

“Could’ve lied to me. I would’ve believed you.” He would’ve tried his damnedest, anyway.

“I know,” Billy said, with that terrible wry gentleness, and Goodnight could feel the hollow clench within him, the clawing approach of panic. “It would not have been fair.” 

“ _Fair_? You’ve got… you’ve got fuckin’ _weird_ standards, my friend,” Goodnight said, actually startled out of the growing spiral. “Six years of lies and then what, it actually got too much?” 

“Other than my name, I’ve never lied to you about what I did,” Billy corrected. “I told you that I was in consulting. _You_ assumed it had to do with computers. Which it did, but obliquely. I’ve never lied to you about going on business—“ 

“And what about the beginning?” Goodnight cut in belligerently. “At the gun range?”

“I meant exactly what I said then. I wanted to meet you because you were the best sniper in the world. In my line of work, it’s always useful to meet interesting people,” Billy said, neutral again. “I wanted to see if you were open to contract work, or, alternatively, whether I could learn something from you.”

“Learn what? I don’t know any ‘interesting’ secrets.” 

“Rifle tips.”

“You didn’t need tips,” Goodnight said, frowning. “You’re a hell of a great shot yourself.” 

“But not the best,” Billy said, with a faint curl to his mouth. “In any case, it was eventually obvious to me that you were not only not going to be open to freelancing, you were going to be trouble if you found out who I was.”

“Didn’t do your research before you hit me up?” 

“I was aware that you knew Major Chisolm, but I wasn’t aware that the two of you were good friends,” Billy admitted.

“So why didn’t you give it up as a bad job?” 

“ _You_ asked me out for dinner. And given that you had to talk down the gun range’s owner and all his friends, I thought it was only fair to agree.” 

“Eh, Eddie don’t normally get that ornery with payin’ customers,” Goodnight mumbled. “He’d had a real bad week. Wife lost her health insurance. Don’t excuse what he or the others did, trying to get you thrown out of there just ‘cos they didn’t like the look of you, but. It wasn’t anythin’ special. Known him long enough that I knew what to say.” 

“I wish you’d stop doing that,” Billy said softly. 

Goodnight ignored him. “‘Sides, I didn’t think you’d accept. Hell, I was pinchin’ myself when you agreed to go home with me after.” 

“I noticed.” Billy seemed amused. 

“So why did you go home with me then? If it wasn’t to get somethin’ out of me? Why’d you hang around for _six years_? I’ve been thinkin’ it over. And I still don’t get it.” 

“Goody…” Billy hesitated, as though revising what he was about to say, then he exhaled. “I’d tell you that you’re a good man, a quality that’s rare in my line of work. Though, I think you wouldn't believe me. I’d tell you that I liked your company, on both the good days and the bad ones. You wouldn't have believed that either.”

“Well—“

“Honestly, though,” Billy said, his voice bone-dry again, fingertips drifting down to Goodnight’s hips, “given how many times I’ve sucked your cock and more all this time, I really didn’t think I’d have to actually tell you why I was ‘hanging around’ for six years.” 

Goodnight froze up, and was probably still gawping when Billy patted him on the shoulder and headed for the stairs. What the hell was that meant to mean?

2007

“The thing about violence,” Goodnight said, as Chisolm cracked open his first cold beer by the river bank, “is that it’s ultimately meaningless.”

“Funny point of view for a soldier as decorated as yourself,” Chisolm said mildly. 

“See, I like that word,” Goodnight said, already well into his third beer and comfortably tipsy. “ _Decorated_. Because that’s what all those pins and ribbons are. Decoration. Pretty and shiny, hiding all the people I killed to get to wear them.” He was a maudlin drunk. Thankfully, Chisolm was used to it. 

“I wouldn’t say the same.” Chisolm drank, settling comfortably into the deck chair. “Them ‘pins and ribbons’ are recognition, and gratitude, and you deserve yours. You’re a hell of a soldier. Saved a lot of lives. Did good.” 

“I’ve been told,” Goodnight muttered, depressed all over again. “What I’m tryin’ to say is, violence is often a product of hatred, or fear. That’s why it’s meaningless. It’s the definition of what’s left when every civilised form of communication breaks down. There’s only pain down that kinda road. No one wins. I should know. Where I grew up, there was a hella lot of fear. Just that it was so ingrained that you just didn’t even know you felt it.” 

“You grew up in Alabama, yeah?” 

“Most bits. When I was six, my parents took me to the Shiloh battlefield. At the gift store, they bought me a couple of those little flags—one Union, one Confederate. Once we got out of the store, I dragged the little Confederate flag in the dirt. See, my little kid brain thought: America was good. The Confederacy fought against America. So the Confederacy had to be bad, right?” Goodnight chuckled mirthlessly to himself. “My dad gave me such a hidin’ that night. Goddamn, even rememberin’ it gives me the shivers.”

“Can’t say I’d agree with giving a kid a hiding over something like that,” Chisolm said mildly.

“Maybe. I earned a hell lot of hidings over the years. I was a bit of a wild kid. Army settled me down. Thing is, the Shiloh incident taught me that I was American _and_ somethin’ else. Southern. One of my great-great-etcetera-grandaddies fought in Alabama. Owned _slaves_ in Alabama, even. In high school, I would’ve told you that the Confederacy seceded in the name of states’ rights, not slavery. That the Ku Klux Klan hadn’t all been that bad.” 

Chisolm laughed, always so goddamned good-natured. “Good thing we didn’t meet in high school, then.” 

“You laugh now,” Goodnight said gloomily, “but that kinda sentiment’s still alive and well, all over large bits of this country. People who live in those parts, some of them have had things bled away for so long—good jobs, houses, the state of the towns, _people_ —that there’s a hollowness that remains, and a lot of times, it just gets filled back up with hate and anger and resentment. I think it’s only getting worse.” 

“Worse? We’ve got a black man running for President. Gaining a lot of traction, too.”

Goodnight sighed. “And he’s behind Hillary in the polls right now. Besides, even if he beats the Clinton machine, and somehow gets the Democratic nomination? Those large bits of this country ain’t ever gonna vote for a black man. Or if he does somehow become our President? You’ve seen what happened to Malcolm X, to MLK, JFK… That’s the cycle of violence and hate and fear for you.” 

“I don’t believe it’s all that bad,” Chisolm said amiably. “After all, you clearly changed. Sitting here, having a beer.” 

“I can’t say that the Army was behind the change of heart, but it sure as hell was the kick up the ass that I needed to open my eyes. But I’m done with all that now,” Goodnight said hastily. “If that’s why you’re here, Major. I’ve been in the Army since 1989. I’ve been to hell and back so often I don’t even look at the landscape no more.” 

Chisolm finished his beer, and hooked over another one. “That wasn’t why I came out here, Goody. I just wanted to check in on you. I’m doing the rounds.” 

“Did _you_ leave the Army?” Goodnight asked, torn between relief and some embarrassment. Not everything _had_ to be about him. Chisolm nodded. “Hell, I didn’t think you’d ever retire. Thought you’d make a general for sure, someday.”

“Too much politics, too little actual work,” Chisolm said, with one of his toothy grins. “Nah. I got an offer from Langley.”

“The goddamned _CIA_?” When Chisolm nodded, Goodnight started to laugh. “What the fuck, Major.” 

“I know, I know. Terrible.” 

“Annie know? Told her yet?” 

“She was relieved, thank you very much.” 

“So you didn’t tell her the truth,” Goodnight said dryly. “Either that, or she hasn’t watched enough spy movies.”

“I told her a little of the truth,” Chisolm admitted. “Said I’d be travelling for shorter periods, that I’d be based at home for most of it. She liked that.”

“She worries about you,” Goodnight said, for he had met the oldest Chisolm sister, and friendly as she was, she’d clearly been fiercely glad that her brother had been home—at the time. “How’s your mum and the others?”

“They’re doin’ good. Ella’s walking out with some neighbor’s kid. Seems like a good kid.” 

Goodnight listened to Chisolm natter on about his family, mellowing down, watching the river go by. It was comforting, some days, listening to someone else’s version of normalcy. And he was fond of the Chisolm family, in his own way, with its fierce approach to friendship and its insistence on a form of Southern hospitality that was far truer and kinder to the spirit than the kind that Goodnight had grown up with. Maybe Chisolm was right. Maybe the world _was_ getting better. Maybe a black man could be President someday, in five years, ten years. The cycle of violence, breaking—or at least bending, just a little.

2016

The flight was uneventful. Nice plane, too. Faraday spent it getting happily drunk on the in-flight amenities, of which there were many, because oil heiresses were _awesome_. He had his plush seat in as near full recline as he could get without drowning himself in tequila, and watched muzzily as Chisolm and Goodnight studied a version of the Map and the Plan on some huge-ass iPad-esque table.

“Why did they make an iPad table?” Faraday asked out aloud, maybe not for the first time. He’d lost count. 

Goodnight and Chisolm had already taken to ignoring him, sadly. Billy was nowhere in sight, possibly a bad sign (?) for an international assassin-person, Horne was loudly asleep in the back, and Red was reading a book across the aisle, pointedly wearing headphones. “Hey,” Faraday said, just in general, and after a beat, Emma’s gentleman caller/minion/accountant/?? wandered over. 

“I think you’ve had enough, Mister Faraday,” he said politely.

“I’ll decide when I’ve had enough, er, whatever your name was again, sorry, it keeps slipping my mind.” 

“Teddy,” said the peon/secretary/??, “like the President.”

“We’ve had a President called Teddy?” Faraday asked, completely mystified. Granted, like many normal people he couldn’t name all the Presidents that had ever been elected, other than the really famous ones, but he was _fairly_ sure that—

“Roosevelt,” Teddy said, with a deep sigh. 

“Oh! Yeah. Him. _Roosevelt_. Not. Teddy. Teddy is the first name. _Theodore_. When you go, ‘like the President’, people think of last names.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir.” Teddy deftly swiped the last of the tequila bottle from Faraday, and the glass. 

“Give that back,” Faraday scowled. “I’m getting cultural here, and you’re interfering.”

“Cultural?” Teddy raised his eyebrows.

“It’s _tequila_. We’re going to _Mexico_.”

“Oh my God,” Goodnight muttered, almost inaudibly. 

“I heard that,” Faraday told him cheerfully, but he’d had enough tequila to fall into a shallow doze for the rest of the trip without being expected to contribute. Faraday disliked ‘contributing’. As far as he was concerned, being actually present and alive and mostly correct was already some sort of contribution. Until it was time to use his Berettas, the rest of it wasn’t part of his pay grade.

They landed in another private airfield, albeit one that actually tried to look hidden, nothing more than a hangar and a flat dirt area for cars. Outside, on the red dirt, Faraday blinked owlishly at what looked like some kinda endless craggy wilderness. It looked like they’d flown not just south, but backwards in time.

“At any point,” Faraday said, shading his eyes, “if Ennio Morricone jumps out from behind a cactus and starts playing one of his songs, I’m still not fucking going to be surprised.” 

Emma had been shaking hands with the tall man who had hopped out of the hangar when they’d landed. He glanced over at Chisolm, who nodded, then at Faraday, keenly. Handsome bastard, even in a dusty-looking shirt and old jeans, a pair of CZs holstered at his hips. The stranger looked Faraday up and down unabashedly, then he shook his head with a faint smirk.

Faraday bristled. “And here’s our token Mexican?” The tall man rolled his eyes. 

“You got a problem with Mexicans, _guero_?” 

“This is Vasquez,” Chisolm said briskly, before Faraday could answer. Pleasantries all around. Bored, Faraday watched minions whom nobody had bothered to introduce taxi the plane into the little hangar, squashing it next to a cargo plane, hiding it out of sight. The tequila was already starting to wear off. As such, he nearly flinched when Vasquez abruptly loomed up at his shoulder. 

“You riding with me,” Vasquez said curtly, and jerked his thumb at one of the dusty, nondescript sedans that were lined up beside the hangar. Billy, Red, Chisolm and Emma were already getting into one car; Horne, Goodnight and Teddy climbing into the next. Faraday hesitated for a moment, then he shrugged, and followed Vasquez into the last car, scrolling down the passenger window, leaning an elbow over the edge as Vasquez got awkwardly into the driver’s side. Big man, small car. Faraday grinned. 

“Could’ve gotten us something with more leg room, Mister Mexican Contact.” 

“You like big fancy cars?”

“Some. Prefer big fancy bikes, myself.” 

“Maybe you ride around south of the border sometimes. Big car, or big bike. Around Juárez Valley.” 

“Nice place for a ride?” 

Vasquez grinned, a feral, sharp-toothed grin that pulled a gritty curl in Faraday’s cut. “The sort of ride that maybe end you up in hell, _guero_. We’re here to take on Bogue. Until we start, best to stay quiet.” 

“This job is going to be _so_ boring.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Refs:  
> I was googling “Han Cho Bai” to see if it was meant to be a Korean character or some weird miscast (Han is a common Korean surname but Cho Bai means… ??? is that even a Korean name?) but yes, Han is a Korean character https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tser2wPC_9M  
> Shiloh story - from Confessions of a former neo-Confederate: http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/9/30/13090100/confederacy-myths-lost-cause


	4. Chapter 4

2008

November had painted Virginia in shades of fire. Goodnight was a little surprised to see Annie waiting for him at Arrivals rather than Chisolm, and she grinned cheekily at him as he made his way through the crowds to her. “Is that really necessary?” Goodnight asked dryly, nodding at the big placard in her hands with ‘GOODNIGHT’ scrawled over it in hot pink.

“Just wanted to make sure that you couldn’t miss it.” Annie Waters, née Chisolm, was almost as tall as her brother, but where he ran slightly towards bulk, she was all graceful lines under her coat, flowery frock and boots. She hugged him tightly, always one for big gestures, unlike her reserved brother. “Glad you made it.” 

“Wouldn’t have missed your mum’s turkey for the world. ‘Sides, Ella’s been sending me pictures of ‘The Process’ for _days_.”

Annie pulled a face as they started to head towards the carpark. “Did she also ask you to help with an intervention?” 

“Eyup. I told her, ain’t worth _my_ teeth to come between her and her brother’s opinion of her new squeeze.” 

Annie snickered. “Ain’t nobody say _squeeze_ no more, Goody. You been watching one too many old man movies.” 

“Excuse me, they’re called _classics_ ,” Goodnight said, pretending to be offended as they skirted the crossing towards the carpark. “Is the kid really that bad, though? What happened to the other one? Thought Sam liked the other one.” 

Annie shook her head slowly. “The neighbour’s kid? He done and signed up for the Marines. Broke up with Ella first. She moped for a week, then she bounced back. Latest kid’s the third one since. Met him online.” 

Goodnight listened amiably to Annie’s surprisingly forensic opinion on Ella’s current, non-approved fling, watching the cars go by as Annie squeezed her yellow Mini out into traffic. The sun was just starting to wake up, banking over thready clouds. “Goody,” Annie prompted, and Goodnight blinked, belatedly realizing that he was being asked a question. 

“Sorry. Drifted a little.” 

“I said,” Annie grinned at him, “this be the second thanksgiving you’re spending with us, and I’m still shocked that you haven’t towed someone along.” 

“Miracles may happen yet,” Goodnight said facetiously. 

“Ooh yeah. Sam told me you said you didn’t think people would vote in a black man as the President.”

“And yet here we are,” Goodnight agreed easily. “I’m glad to be proven wrong.” 

“Damn right,” Annie said proudly. “Our mama, it was the first time she’d ever voted. Said she’d never felt like it mattered before. Watching the parties in the street, knowing that a black family’s gonna be waking up every morning in the White House next year… wow. I feel like things are changing up for the better.” 

“I do so hope,” Goodnight nodded. “Country’s goin’ through a bad time. People losin’ their jobs, their homes, banks failin’. Could use some hope.” 

“Amen to that. So could you,” Annie said, always the relentless one. Being a lawyer probably did a real number on a person. “By the way, I was gonna invite some single friends of mine over—”

“Please don’t,” Goodnight groaned. 

“—but Sam talked me out of it. Aww, Goody, don’t you pull that face. Ain’t right for a nice boy like you to be alone. You like girls? Guys? Something else? We’re cool with that. You let me know. I’ll fix you up.” 

“This is why Ella keeps textin’ me and askin’ for interventions,” Goodnight told her. “Between you and Sam, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried runnin’ away from home.” 

“Oh, she threatens to now and then,” Annie said indifferently. “But I tell her, Sacramento’s a long, long way to escape to, and besides, there’s shit all to do there and she’d be stuck doing your laundry. Really though. Sam and I worry about you sometimes.”

“I’m a grown man, Annie.”

“So? Sam’s a grown man, and you should see the shit he gets up to sometimes when he’s made his mind up about something. I tell him, he’s got to learn to live and let live. Why’d you got to see things through to the bitter end, hell take the consequences? Used to get him into all kinds of trouble in high school, that kinda mule-headed stubbornness.”

“Made him a great commandin’ officer,” Goodnight said, amused. 

Annie rolled her eyes. “Ooh, don’t get me started. Ma always tells him, I don’t care how many medals you got, you still gotta help out ‘round the house whenever you pop by, and you better pop by at least once a week.” 

Goodnight could believe that. The matriarch of the Chisolm household still ruled her family with an iron fist—even though two of her three kids had flown the nest. “Anyway,” he found himself saying, “you don’t need to worry about me.”

“You met someone?” Annie asked casually. Goodnight probably didn’t school his face quickly enough. “What. _Really_? And you didn’t invite her down?” 

“Calm down, Annie. It’s only been a couple of weeks.” 

“A couple of _weeks_?” Annie narrowed her eyes. “Ella didn’t tell me anything.”

“Probably because,” Goodnight said dryly, “I don’t make it a general habit to confide in a college student. Besides, I’d guessed that you’d overreact. Seriously.” 

“Where’d you guys meet?” 

“…At the gun range,” Goodnight admitted.

“What.”

“Seems Eddie—the owner—posted a picture of one of my target cards on Facebook and it got some attention. First time I’d heard of it myself. Billy was curious, said he was in the area anyway and thought he’d come down to have a look.” 

“‘Billy’? Not some redneck gun-totin’ NRA guy, I hope.” 

“No, no. Not in the least.” 

“Hot?” Annie inquired, and laughed when Goodnight blushed a little. “ _Oooh_ , I see how it is. You just don’t wanna share, you old dawg. You got a picture?”

“Nah. He’s one of those camera-shy people. He’s a consultant, travels a lot. Said he’d come by the next time he’s in Sacramento, thinks it might be sooner rather than later.” Personally, Goodnight didn’t really think that lightning could really strike twice. Billy was probably just talking to him out of boredom or sheer politeness. “But we’re keeping in contact. Taking things slow.”

“Well, you better bring him next year, or you ain’t invited no longer.”

“Now, now, no threats.”

Thanksgiving at the Chisolm ranch was always rowdy. Goodnight wasn’t the only charity case, but although he recognised some faces from the previous year, he didn’t re-introduce himself. Besides, drama had happened: Ella had brought her non-approved boyfriend, some skinny kid with dreads, and Chisolm was Not Happy About It. Family drama. Goodnight ate what he was given and watched, bemused. Thanksgiving at _his_ family had always been subdued, especially when his father started to drink. God knew what had happened to the old man. Goodnight hadn’t bothered to check. 

Billy sent him a text late past midnight, when clean-up was done and almost everyone was drunk. Goodnight excused himself, pleading jetlag, and went up the guest room he’d been assigned, his heart already beating a little faster. 

Taking things slow. Yeah, right. 

It was short: _Happy Thanksgiving._ Goodnight sat on the bed, a little disappointed. 

_Same to you_ , he replied. _How’s New York?_

 _Cold. Very boring._ There was a pause, and even as Goodnight was working out some trite sort of answer, Billy asked, _Are you alone?_

Shit. Goodnight was suddenly hyper-aware of the faint murmurs downstairs, the occasional bursts of laughter. Chisolm had drunkenly challenged the Non-Approved-Boyfriend to Mario Kart, of all things, with Ella gleefully egging everyone on and Annie plying all the witnesses with some sort of terrifyingly home-brewed moonshine. _Yeah, why?_ Goodnight sent back. Surely Billy wouldn’t— 

The phone buzzed in his hand, and Goodnight picked up on reflex without even checking the number. “Sure you’re alone?” Billy asked, mischief in his voice. 

“This is terrible. You’re gonna to get me in trouble with my hosts,” Goodnight told him, though he couldn’t help but grin. 

“Why? I haven’t done anything yet.”

“It’s the ‘yet’ that gets me.” Goodnight cautiously lay down on the bed, rubbing a palm casually down the front of his jeans. God, even listening to Billy’s voice, that low, tightly controlled baritone, the faint accent—

“Are you touching yourself yet?” Billy asked, and chuckled when Goodnight hissed and fumbled for the button on his jeans. “Guessing that’s a ‘yes’.” 

“Darlin’, what _do_ you do to me,” Goodnight breathed, and Billy laughed, low and rumbling and hungry.

2016

Bogue had not so much taken over a town as built himself a mini fortress, judging from the maps. It was on a plateau, a few hours out from Ciudad Juárez, where the Bogue cartel was fighting a bloody three-way turf war with a couple of bitter rivals. They stayed at a ranch some distance away from the city, a rambling property with a pointedly indifferent landlord. Some relative of Vasquez’s, apparently. Goodnight wasn’t entirely sure if that was a great idea.

“He knows the risks,” Vasquez assured Goodnight, when he raised it in the stables. The stalls were mostly empty, though an old white horse remained, old and untroubled by the company, whickering at them in between munching on oats. “Is my cousin.” 

“Risks being that Bogue finds out he’s harbourin’ a hit team and comes here and murders his family, those kinds of risks?” 

Vasquez half-turned, spitting on the hay. “You live where?” 

A little thrown by the non-sequitur, Goodnight said, “Sacramento.”

“Nice place? Nice house?”

“Could do worse.” 

“Any of your friends die last few days? Weeks?”

“No—”

Vasquez grinned at him, mirthless. “Here, everyone know someone who die. People die everyday in the city near here. Chisolm say you are famous soldier?” 

Goodnight had never learned how to answer those kinds of questions. “Fame is relative.” 

Vasquez grunted, leaning against the stall and petting the old horse. “This is not like any American war. American soldier, you fight as one of many, yes? Many technology. Tanks, bombs, many people.”

“For some part of it, yes.” 

“Here it is us against many,” Vasquez gestured expansively out of the stable. “And they will probably see us coming. Chisolm, he _loco_.” 

“If you think it’s a suicide mission, then why are you here? There are easier ways to make money.” 

“I remember my debts. So do you, I think.” Vasquez shrugged. “Why are any of us here but debts?” He said something in Spanish, grinning, and it was Goodnight’s turn to shrug. Eventually, Vasquez wandered off, and Goodnight pulled up a chair outside the stable, lighting up. He was starting to run low on cigarettes, and Billy hadn’t yet returned his pills.

“Fuck,” Goodnight said, out aloud, and closed his eyes as he breathed out. Despite Vasquez’s misgivings, the plan _seemed_ fairly sound, at least in Goodnight’s opinion. Still, Vasquez _was_ the local. Dimly, Goodnight felt the first cold touch of an unformed anxiety, worrying at the edges of his mind. He smoked aggressively, trying to let it go, and as such, nearly missed Chisolm arguing quietly with Billy, somewhere behind, beyond the stable. 

“—come this far,” said Billy. “Two weeks, max.” 

“Seven men’s going to be tricky enough.” 

“Probably impossible.”

“We’ve got a plan—”

“I’ve seen it.”

Chisolm sighed. “Well, if you have any better ideas, let’s hear them.”

“I am telling you my ‘better idea’,” Billy retorted evenly. “Two weeks. Just me.” 

“And what’re you going to do in two weeks, pray tell? You can’t expect me to believe that you’re just gonna what, waltz in there by yourself and cap Bogue and get out scot free?” 

“You know what I can do,” Billy said flatly. Goodnight rubbed a hand over his face, slowly, and got to his feet, stubbing out his cigarette. He found Billy and Chisolm near the cars, still facing each other down, and Billy glanced at him sharply, then relaxed.

Chisolm didn’t even turn around. “Maybe you should take over here, Goody. Explain to this stubborn asshole why storming Bogue’s fortress single-handedly is a bad idea.” 

“I’m not sure that I know where to start,” Goodnight said, blinking. “Really, Billy?”

“I usually work alone.” Billy shot back. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Goodnight growled. “Life ain’t a B-grade movie.”

“I’m not looking to run a suicide mission,” Chisolm said firmly.

“Effectively, you are. Worse, I don’t think it’ll work.” Billy retorted. 

“Well,” Goodnight said slowly, “if you’ve got a way to get in there solo, get Bogue, and get out, maybe we should hear it. Though you sure as hell should’ve raised it earlier, just sayin’.” 

Billy said nothing, and just as Goodnight was going to prompt him again, Chisolm said softly, “Your plan… you don’t intend to get out, do you?”

“May be difficult,” Billy conceded stiffly. 

“Sam,” Goodnight could hear himself say distantly. “Could we have a moment?”

Chisolm eyed the both of them for a long moment, then he nodded reluctantly and strode back to the farmhouse. Billy glowered at Goodnight, still tight-lipped, even as Goodnight rubbed a hand over his face again. “Jesus. You drive me crazy.” 

“Goody—”

“The hell did you even agree to come to a job that you thought was a suicide mission?”

“I told you,” Billy said neutrally. “Chisolm said you’d be here. And here you are.”

“You said that you didn’t believe him.” 

“If you hadn't shown up by the time we were due to fly to Mexico, I would have left.” 

“And now, what, you want to just… just head in? Solo?”

“Not my first time.” Billy said curtly.

“Really? How many times have you murdered the boss of a drug cartel inside his own stronghold?” When Billy merely frowned at him, Goodnight said slowly, “Unless you don’t trust the rest of us. Hell, is that why? You’d rather just risk your own hide than trust us not to screw up?” 

Somehow, that hurt. Goodnight wasn’t really surprised. The last two years, some days, Billy could hurt him even though he wasn’t even in contact. Billy stared at him, blinking slowly, then he glanced away, setting his hands on his hips, transferring his frown to the blasted landscape. “Can you even shoot straight right now? Without the pills?” 

So it _was_ about him after all. Goodnight flushed, grasping gratefully for anger. “I don’t fuckin’ need the pills to _shoot_. Want me to prove it? Right now?”

“Can you pull the trigger,” Billy continued inexorably, “if it’s a person in your sights? Not a target card?” 

That gave Goodnight pause. “Well I…” he trailed off, anger ebbing away, replaced by a trembly sense of background panic, still low key. “I… uh well…”

“I think you can’t,” Billy said softly. “And what’s more, I think you’re going to get yourself killed. If you freeze up, or worse.”

Worse. Billy thought that Goodnight would make a run for it. Thought he was a coward after all. “I’ll do what I have to,” Goodnight said unsteadily, then he tried again. “Nothin’ _I_ haven’t dealt with before. It’d help if you gave me back my fuckin’ _pills_.” 

“They’d dull your situational awareness—”

“I’m not lookin’ for a goddamned lecture.”

“And I’m trying to tell you,” Billy said evenly, “that you should sit this out.” 

“And _I’m_ telling you that goin’ at it yourself is gonna get _you_ killed,” Goodnight snarled, clawing back his anger, his frustration, and, fine, the little part of him that told him that Billy was right, that Goodnight was no use to anyone, let alone on a battlefield. “Can’t you see what I’m tryin’ to get at? _I don’t want to lose you again._ ” 

Surprise rarely showed on Billy’s face. This time, though, Billy actually stared at Goodnight blankly for a long moment, then he shook his head slowly, just as what Goodnight had blurted out finally caught up with him. He could feel his cheeks burning. 

“You don’t need me,” Billy said finally. 

Goodnight was tempted to snap, _D’you know the number of times I was tempted to take that whole damned bottle these last two years?_ But he managed to swallow the words, hold down his temper. “Sure, and that’s why I let Sam Chisolm talk me into joinin’ his personal crusade.”

“You knew his sisters. His mother. You went to the funeral.” It had been four years back. Technically, Billy had also been invited to the wake, but more ‘sudden business’ had come up. In the end, Goodnight had gone alone, flown down to Virginia, to stand witness to Sam Chisolm’s bitter grief.

“I did,” Goodnight said stiffly. “They were fine people, good, honest folk. They didn’t deserve to die the way they did, hell, nobody does. But I wouldn’t have gone to start a war over what happened. I didn’t think that _Sam_ would. It’s been _years_.” 

“There were no petroleum heiresses before,” Billy pointed out, his mouth curling up faintly, mirthless. “The hatred sat deep, and waited. It usually does.” 

“Billy, I swear to God… if you’re headin' out there by yourself, then by God I’m comin’ with you,” Goodnight said, exasperated. “And if I find that you’ve… you’ve snuck off in the middle of the night, or whatever it is, then I’m _still_ comin’ after you. So you’re goin’ to have to deal with my fuck-ups either way.” Ah hell, if he was gonna embarrass himself, he might as well just go the whole hog. “I still care about you, all right? _Fuck._ ” 

“…I know,” Billy said quietly. Goodnight waited, hoping for something else, _something_ , but Billy often offered only silence, especially whenever he seemed to feel that there was nothing left to say. Goodnight watched Billy head off, thankfully back towards the farmhouse rather than haring out by himself, and grit his teeth. Billy did have a point. Out on the battlefield, it was 50/50 whether Goodnight was going to be a liability. Maybe worse odds than that. 

“Just one more fight,” Goodnight murmured, a prayer that the empty sky seemed to quickly swallow. One last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I now regret having written 3 chapters with ‘Chisolm’ instead of Sam, but oh well I’ll keep calling Sam that for consistency, even in the family chapters D:


	5. Chapter 5

2017

“Y’know,” Faraday said thoughtfully, as they watched telly over boxes of Thai takeout, “I kinda thought that growing up in an _actual_ circus meant that no kinda crazy clown act was ever gonna scare me no more. Hell, I wasn’t even scared in _prison_.”

On screen, the President was announcing, red-faced and triumphant, that America had just pulled the plug on every climate change deal worked out by the previous Administration. “It’s just a bullshit story, climate change, a big conspiracy bullshit story made up by the Chi-nese. If the world’s warming up, how come it still snows in winter? You tell me. You tell me. We’re going to be competitive again. We’re going to be energy competitive again, bigly so. Jobs. Energy. It’s going to be _beautiful_.” 

Vasquez changed the channel with a grimace of disgust, cutting to a National Geographic clip of the African savannah. Antelope cut gracefully through sun-browned grass, twitchy and alert, their tails flicking in the air, scattered and painfully few. “You grew up in circus?” 

“Yup. Parents looked after the elephant. Sad old thing, was always chained up by the foot, moping to itself. The day I realized that its flesh was growing out over the chain ‘cos it’d been chained up that long, I told my parents I didn’t want nothing to do with what they did. So they handed me off to the trick shot guy. Funny old man. Eyes were going, and he had this obsession with Playboy mags. But he taught me how to shoot.” 

Vasquez nodded, in between scarfing down his portion of pad thai. “Must have been good teacher. You learned good. I had to teach myself.” 

“Doesn’t seem to have done you wrong. You’re a decent hand at a gun. Not as good as me, ‘course, but good.” Vasquez chuckled, and, to Faraday’s surprise, didn’t bring up the disaster at the gun range a couple of days back. Cautiously, Faraday decided to keep talking. “I took over when the old man retired. We left him in one of the towns we passed through, never saw him again. Then the elephant died and we left my parents in another town. Good riddance. They didn’t ask me to stay with them, and I didn’t want them to ask.” 

“Chisolm say he get you out of prison.” 

“That he did. God knows how he did that. Thought you couldn’t pull that kinda shit in the U.S. of A. Shows you how much I know about what the CIA can do, even _retired_ CIA. Fucking hell.” 

Faraday wiped his mouth, pushing his box away, and settled in the fold-up chair, contented. The house they were in was Vasquez’s, a couple of hours’ drive north of the border. Given the size of the house, the small gun range underneath, and the suspiciously large and empty cellar, Faraday had an inkling what the house used to be used for. One link of a smuggler’s supply route, probably, inching up towards Los Angeles.

“What did you do?” Vasquez didn’t even sound all that curious. On screen, a lioness was stalking through the tall grass, padding closer to her prey, all rippling golden fur that couldn’t quite hide how thin she was. Behind her, her small pride was fanning out. 

“Had a gambling problem. Loved cards a little too much. One of the towns we stopped in had a bar with a cards room ‘round back. Got accused of cheating, people started drawing their guns, and next thing I know I’m being Mirandised and shoved into the back of a cop car. It was pretty messy. Got some overworked public defender, had to plead guilty, got sentenced to life.” 

“And did you?”

“Did I what?” Faraday asked, a little nonplussed. 

“Cheat.”

“No! Well. Sometimes I cheat. But I _didn’t_ cheat in that room. Didn’t have to,” Faraday grumbled. “And for the record, I _did_ try to talk myself out of it.” 

“Ah, I see the problem.” Vasquez grinned at him, and Faraday rolled his eyes, cuffing Vasquez on the shoulder.

“What about you? Chisolm never got around to explaining about you. And you sure as hell don’t strike me as some kinda CIA outfield agent or whatever.”

“I owed him a favour.” 

“That’s it?” 

Vasquez shrugged. “Ciudad Juárez was once Mexico’s most dangerous city. Then it became better. Sinaloa cartel won turf war. Police, government, also better. Many, many people still poor, but life was coming back. Then Bogue come. He and his small army. Set up outside city, restart the war. Except much worse. Bogue, if you make him angry, he not just kill you. He find and kill your whole _family_. No matter where. Torture them, not just kill them.”

“Yeah,” Faraday said soberly. “Goody told me about Chisolm’s sisters and mum. That was rough.” 

Vasquez shrugged again. “Chisolm fight cartels in Mexico on behalf of your government. Led CIA task force. If you go against the cartels, they fight back. Bogue not the only cartel that go after family.”

“Wonder why he didn’t just go back to Mexico right after the funeral. Use CIA resources to take Bogue out.”

“CIA not for personal vendettas.” Vasquez smirked. “You Americans. But you ask me about _my_ favour. I used to work for cartels. Didn’t belong to any. Work for whoever could pay. Made one boss angry, he no understand idea of ‘free agent’. He sent people. In Mexico City, Chisolm tip me off. He wanted to know something in return about an old job. I tell him no, I owe him favour instead.” 

“Some crazy favour that turned out to be. You probably should’ve just fed him whatever he wanted.” On TV, National Geographic was earnestly noting that the global extinction event was underway, and slowly accelerating. “Huh. Ever get the feeling that whatever we do now’s pretty much all for nothing? We’ve fucked it all up, and we’ve got nowhere to go. So what’s the point?” 

“If you believe that, _guero_ , then why wake up in the morning?” 

“Sheer curiosity, I guess.” Or sheer bloody-mindedness. In Faraday’s case, the two sentiments often worked out the same.

“People who fear the end, fear for what?” Vasquez said, reaching over to pat his knee. “Tomorrow you will still be alive. Day after. And day after. You know that to be true. If it is not true, no’ like you know. So. Why fear what comes? To just fear is to do nothing.” He brushed a ticklish peck against Faraday’s cheek, and Faraday found Vasquez grinning as he twisted round to get a proper kiss. 

“With that kinda attitude, I see how _you_ got into trouble enough to have to owe a man like Chisolm a favour,” Faraday muttered, though he didn’t pull away when Vasquez laughed and tugged him closer.

2016

“I’m the most overpaid chaperone in the world,” Faraday said cheerfully from the back seat. Beside Goodnight, Billy rolled his eyes. He was taking them both out somewhere mysterious to meet ‘someone useful’, and had declined to elaborate. Chisolm had given it up as a bad job, but had put his foot down when Billy said he was going to drive out alone.

The borrowed car belonged to Vasquez’s cousin, an old Volkswagen Jetta that had once presumably been red, and was now a limp shade of salmon pink. It had no air conditioning, only three windows, and a tendency to make strange coughing sounds as it went. If the car exploded, Goodnight thought gloomily, it would just be their luck.

“What’s with all the secrecy anyway?” Goodnight asked, not bothering to hide his exasperation. 

“I prefer not to discuss _my_ contacts in public.” Billy said flatly, clearly still annoyed at being saddled with hangers-on. Well, fuck that, Goodnight decided savagely. Whether Billy liked it or not, he was here as part of a unit. Which meant no haring off on secretive business. 

Faraday groaned. “What’s the harm? Nobody’s gonna blab. You think we’re all gonna die anyway, don’t’cha?” 

“I am amending the plan,” Billy shot back. “But this contact hasn’t always been reliable. Which is why I wanted to go out here _alone_.” 

“Yeah, right. You could’ve run right off to Bogue’s fortress, for all we know,” Goodnight said sharply. 

“If I still wanted to do that I would’ve done it last night.” Billy pointed out evenly. “You’ve made your point, Goody.” 

“Seriously, you two,” Faraday chimed in. “Uh, just so I’m reading this right. The two of you… know each other? Have history? Who dumped who?”

“Will you _shut up_ ,” Goodnight growled, even as Billy muttered, “I could kill him and hide the body.” 

“Jesus, all right. I’ll be quiet.” Faraday looked injured. “Silent as the grave, keeping mum, that’s me.” 

They stopped some distance out of Agua Prieta, offroad, idling on sun-reddened dirt, in the shadow of a gutted old building. The car had grown too hot to sit in, and they’d taken shelter inside the building, with Faraday slouched in a rusty chair that he’d found. Given that he’d nursed a small bottle of cheap whisky for the rest of the drive, Goodnight wasn’t surprised to see Faraday doze off and start snoring gently. The hell was Chisolm thinking?

“He’s very good with pistols,” Billy said quietly, from where he was leaning against the doorframe. The door itself was some distance away, baking in the sun along with the dirt. “Saw it myself. We waited a week in that oil field for everyone else to arrive.”

“We’re lookin’ to besiege a cartel, not win a quickdraw contest. ‘Least the others seem decent. I’ve heard of Jack Horne myself. And if Red’s like any other Green Beret I’ve ever met, they’re formidable.”

“Still not a good plan. Very CIA plan,” Billy scoffed. “Create diversion and infiltrate? Everyone attack and try to sow enough chaos to draw out Bogue?” 

“That’s… a rather simplified way of looking at it. What would _you_ have done?”

“Leverage my name to get a meeting. Pretend that I’m looking for work. Bogue is always on the lookout for assassins.” 

“That’s it? That was _your_ plan? And then what? They’d disarm you, if they’re not stupid.” 

“I don’t need weapons to kill someone.” Billy glared at the dusty, craggy landscape sprawling out before them. “Go home, Goody. You can take the car and cross back to America from Agua Prieta.” 

Goodnight frowned at him. “That had better not be why we came all the way out here.” 

“I’m tempted to make you,” Billy muttered, though he didn’t budge, and checked his phone instead, stabbing at the screen with his fingertips in open annoyance. 

“Your friend’s late?”

“Obviously.”

Goodnight bit down on his first retort, and forced himself to retort, evenly, “I get that you don’t want to get into a scrap with me—”

“Goody. Firstly. This is not just ‘a scrap’. Secondly. Yes. I don’t want you to be here,” Billy said, clipped and tightly controlled, “because I _know_ how much it’s going to cost you to go to war again.”

“This comin’ from the guy who lifted my copin’ mechanism.” 

Billy glanced at him, abruptly expressionless again, then he exhaled loudly and slipped a hand into an inner pocket. Goodnight nearly fumbled the pill bottle in surprise when it was tossed his way. Everything was still there, too. “I no longer have a right to tell you what to do,” Billy said neutrally. “I know that.” 

“Never saw you as someone who’d really care about havin’ a _right_ to do somethin’ first before he did it,” Goody said, a little weakly. He pocketed the bottle anyway, though it seemed to sit heavily against him. “I don’t… I don’t take it regularly,” he added defensively. “Just… just some nights. When the dreams get real bad.”

“You used to break your own arm to get a prescription,” Billy reminded him flatly. “Before I showed you how to get it off the deep web.” 

“And I got clean. I can get clean again,” Goody muttered. That had been a particularly bad patch in his life. He’d also really only weaned himself off Vicodin as part of his then-desperate need to impress. Billy had just moved in, and Goody had been terrified that he would fuck it up. 

Billy seemed about to say something, but then he straightened up, glancing sharply over at the horizon instead. A truck was rounding the cliff, clawing clouds of dust through the heat-swollen air, trundling towards them. “Faraday.”

“—nn, huh, what? Time to go already?”

“Stay inside the house. Cover me from the windows. Goody, stay here.” 

“Thought this was gonna be a friendly meetin’.” Goodnight blinked. 

“‘Friendly’ is usually relative.”

“Meaning you probably tried to kill this guy before?” Faraday asked dryly. 

“How did you guess?” 

Goodnight flinched. "Jesus, Billy. Seriously?"

“Call it an informed hunch,” Faraday told Billy cheerfully, though he slipped quietly into position, flattened against what was left of the wall. Still caught flatfooted, Goodnight wished he’d brought his gear, but his rifle was back at the ranch, and he only had the pistol he’d borrowed from Chisolm, holstered at his hip. 

The truck rumbled to a stop at a respectful distance. It had a white cab that was long blasted a dull brownish gray with age and neglect, and it was carrying something that was heavily tacked over under blue tarp. Billy strolled out of the house as a tall, bald man let himself out of the driver’s side, broad shouldered and craggy, probably at least in his fifties or sixties, in a checkered shirt tucked into faded jeans. 

“You’re late, Moses,” Billy told him curtly. 

Moses jerked his thumb back at the truck. “You say that like I’m delivering you a truckful of fucking roses rather than a shipment from a friend of a friend.” He eyed the house with the air of a veteran. “You got friends in there? Funny. Thought you usually worked alone. New secretary? No, wait, I know you,” Moses looked right at Goodnight. “You’re Goodnight Robicheaux, ain’t you? The Angel of Death?”

“That’s none of your business,” Billy snapped. 

“Sure, sure.” Moses held up his hands in mock surrender. “Just looks to me like you’re looking to take over a small city or something. So. We even?”

“We’re even on your bounty,” Billy conceded. “But not the plane.” 

“This is why you’re never going to have any friends,” Moses said mournfully. “Well. Good luck, whatever you’re trying to do. I’m going to have to get back to the missus.”

“The two of you can come along if you want. Good money. Build your relationship.” 

“Nah. We’ve got a job further south in Venezuela. Thanks for asking, though.” Moses gingerly shook hands with Billy, nodded at Goodnight and Faraday, then he rolled out a motorcycle from the back of the truck and took off, soon rounding out of sight. 

Billy was already climbing up against the cab, twitching up a corner of the tarp. Underneath it were rows of familiar-looking metal barrels. “The hell is that?” Faraday asked, from behind them. “Beer?” 

“Barrel bombs,” Goodnight corrected, and forced himself to breathe shallowly, the memories pressing close. “Really? Isn’t this a little excessive?” 

“You can try and kill two hundred people surgically, and die trying, or take them out efficiently,” Billy patted one of the barrels, making Goodnight flinch. “And maybe we’ll all get out of this alive.” 

“I… kinda vote for efficiency,” Faraday said, blinking owlishly. “Holy hell. I admit I had no idea what you were gonna pick up out here, but a shitload of explosives probably wasn’t what I had in mind.” 

“They’re not explosives,” Billy said shortly, and climbed into the cab. “Follow me back in the car. Faraday, are you fit to drive?”

“Yup. Slept it all off. Sadly.” 

Billy glanced at Goodnight, who wavered for a moment before circling around to climb into the passenger side. “Not bombs?” Goodnight echoed. “Billy, not everyone in that fort is going to be… look. We can’t just commit mass murder. It’s _2016_.” 

“And we won’t be,” Billy said flatly. “But I _do_ intend to get you out of this alive, if you’re committed to Chisolm’s crusade. This is it. My plan. It’ll fit in with Chisolm’s. I’ll talk to him about it.” 

“And then?”

“And then what?”

“Assumin’ we make it out. Alive. After all this. D’you have a plan for that too?” Goodnight asked acidly, still struggling to keep a lid on his temper. 

Billy didn’t answer him, not until they were back on the road, with Faraday in the car behind them. The truck rattled and groaned around them, belching exhaust, and seemed rather further along the road to automotive death than the old Volkswagen had been. Wonderful. 

“I don’t know, Goody,” Billy said finally. “I haven’t thought about it.” 

“Bullshit. You always plan ahead.” Everything about Billy had always seemed so meticulously arranged. 

“I suppose the right thing to do would be to walk away again,” Billy said, oddly formally, as though Goodnight hadn’t spoken. “I know I’ve hurt you. And for that I’m sorry. I wish we didn’t have to meet again this way. Or at all. I wanted you to have a clean break.” 

Goodnight had braced himself for Billy’s answer, but hearing it said out aloud ached anyway, a hollowed-out pain, wounds getting gouged back open and left to bleed. He looked away quickly, out of the passenger window, fingers clenched tightly into his palms. “Well, you ain’t forgiven,” Goodnight said unsteadily. Two years, and it was still too soon for that. For a fleeting moment Goodnight was tempted to beg. But what was the point? Billy hadn’t ever tended to change his mind once he was set on something. Usually, it was _Goodnight_ who bent to the wind. 

“I know,” Billy said softly. “And I’m sorry about that too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Refs:  
> http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/26/world/wild-animals-disappear-report-wwf/  
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/10/25/obama-hits-the-trail-for-hillary-clinton-and-to-cement-his-le/


	6. Chapter 6

2012

Goodnight was well aware that he wasn’t walking straight coming off the plane, and, comfortably convinced that all he needed to do was make his way eventually out of Arrivals and pour himself into a cab, he completely didn’t notice Billy until Billy caught his elbow. Flinching back violently, Goodnight nearly backpedaled right into a small family of tourists. The mum swerved her trolley away hastily, her kids scattering back. “Hey!” The father snapped. “Watch where yer goin’!”

“Sorry, uh. Sorry ‘bout that sir,” Goodnight mumbled, and got a surprisingly dirty look from one of the little kids before the mum whisked them all out to the cab stand. 

“Didn’t park far off,” Billy said quietly. “Come.” 

“Thought you were, uh. Going away on business. I meant. I thought you went away on business. Longer business. In another country. Somewhere.” Goodnight bit down on his lower lip out of sheer self-preservation. Whisky numbed him down nicely, but it always also made him feel stupid in return. If he’d known Billy was going to pick him up from the airport—

“It concluded ahead of time.” Billy had him by the elbow again, leading him gently towards the closest exit, taking his bag from him. “Let’s get you home.” 

“Didn’t mean t’drink so much on the plane,” Goodnight said, though he let Billy guide him. “Thought I’d have time t’get home and sober up.” 

“And you will,” Billy said comfortably, as though Goodnight wasn’t swaying on his feet and stinking of alcohol. “Steady now.” 

“New car?” Goodnight mumbled, blinking owlishly at the yellow Boxster that he was helped into. The seat was lower than where his muddled brain had expected it to be, and he nearly slid out of the car, grasping blindly for the door. Thankfully, Billy was busy stashing the bag, and Goodnight had righted himself by the time Billy got into the driver’s seat.

“New car. Like it?”

“I dunno. Seems kinda small.” Goodnight strapped himself in, blinking as Billy laughed. “What?” 

“Only you.” Around them, the car rumbled to life with a low roar.

“Only me what?” Goodnight asked, bewildered, but Billy smiled and shook his head, retracting the hood of the car. Goodnight leaned out into the wind, a little queasy, breathing slowly. In and out. Billy eased into traffic without pushing the speed limit, even though the powerful engine seemed to growl in protest against them. “Sorry.” 

“For what?” 

“Having to come and get me.” 

“Goody,” Billy said patiently, “it’s been four years. _Normal_ people do things like pick up their partners from the airport as a surprise.” 

_Partner_. Billy had never said that before. Blindsided, Goodnight tried to say something casual, or just _something_ , but his brain felt like it was filled with dull static. “Uh,” Goodnight cleared his throat. “Yeah. I guess. Normal people partners. Uh, yeah.” Ah, fuck. Goodnight looked away, closing his eyes. Should’ve just kept his mouth shut. 

“What,” Billy asked, completely deadpan. “You don’t think that we’re normal?” 

This time, Goodnight managed to stop himself from blurting out the first thing on his mind, but it was a near thing. Muzzily, he tried to think an answer through, something that was more than an expression of complete puzzlement, but in the end, as Billy started to chuckle, Goodnight said, “I really don’t even know how to answer that. Are we?” 

“House, picket fence. No dog yet. Close enough.” 

“I didn’t even think we’d get this far,” Goodnight said wonderingly, sobered up by sheer astonishment. “How the hell did that even happen? I mean. I’ve already fucked up at least twice in the last half an hour.” 

“Goody,” Billy said, forever so endlessly patient, “nobody’s keeping score. You just came back from a _funeral_. You’ve lost three of your friends. If you’d been completely put together after that, _then_ I’d have been worried.”

“Oh,” Goodnight mumbled. Relief ebbed quickly, back into the hollowed sense of shocked grief. He still felt like he was sleepwalking, like the whole ordeal hadn’t really happened, like all he had to do was check his phone to see the latest texted complaints from Ella, or the essay-like messages from Annie, endlessly trying to winkle a picture of Billy off him. And Mama Chisolm… oh God. “It was… Billy, they’d had to have a closed casket funeral. Even… even Ella, oh my God. She was so _young_. I still don’t believe it.” 

“How’s Sam holding up?”

“He’s like one of the walking dead. I gather his aunt handled everything. The arrangements. Sam was just… he was so _lost_. Like I’d never seen him. He was sleepwalking. Losing his ma, and Ella, God, and _Annie_ , I think it burned something right out of him. Felt like he barely even recognised me. We didn’t talk much. He didn’t wanna talk to anyone.” 

Billy was silent for a while, grim. “Time eventually heals all wounds.”

“Not everything,” Goodnight disagreed. “Sure, people like to say that. But there’s some hurts out there that just get so deep into your bones that they stick there, like shrapnel. They’d just keep bleedin’ you, and bleedin’ you, all the way to the end, hollowin’ you out a day at a time. Time don’t heal those kinds of hurts. It just teaches you how t’hide them. Some hurts, there ain’t no comin’ back from.” 

“…Is that what happened to you?” Billy asked softly. 

“I thought so at the start,” Goodnight admitted, his nerves still loosened by whisky. “That’s why I wasn’t lookin’ to get better. Thought there wasn’t no way forward for that. All I wanted was to find ways to make the pain go away for a while.” 

“You still got clean. All by yourself.” 

“Found somethin’ better.” Goodnight reached over, and tentatively patted Billy’s knee, just to watch a faint smile press itself over Billy’s mouth. “So I thought I might as well try and be slightly less of a fuck up.”

“You never were one,” Billy told him, but Billy always tended to say things like that. Nice words, but Goodnight knew better. After all, _Goodnight_ was the one with firsthand experience of his many personal failures. “You could’ve stayed longer in Virginia,” Billy continued. “If you felt that Sam needed help.”

“Nah. His aunts have that covered, I gather. The church, too, the pastor’s a good friend of the family. He’d be fine.” Chisolm was one of the strongest people Goodnight had ever met, anyway. “As fine as he can be, I guess. Given the circumstances.” 

“Didn’t you say he worked for the CIA?”

“Have I?” Goodnight grimaced. Shit. When the hell had he opened his big mouth about that? Years ago, maybe? Billy had been there on the really bad patches, with or without Vicodin, and those parts of his life were a little blurry. “Well uh. What about it?” 

“If I was a CIA agent,” Billy said thoughtfully, “and someone out there had murdered my family—”

“Ah, I see where you’re goin’ there. Nah. Won’t happen.”

“Why not?” 

“Sam’s a righteous kinda guy. A good man. People who kill people for… for money, or out of hate, or things like that… well, he ain’t one of those people.” 

“‘Those people’?” Billy repeated, his voice going oddly neutral. 

“Uh well,” Goodnight cast around, trying to explain himself. He could tell he’d tripped something, dimly, instincts blaring a dull warning that he couldn't quite parse. Awkwardly, he explained, “Bad enough that Sam and I killed people in the name of our country. Going through wars that were bad to worse, that did little but bring more and more pain and sufferin’ to more and more people. But people who do shit like that for fun? Or for _money_? I don’t understand that. The hell would you do that? Pullin’ the trigger on someone _marks_ you. Burns you down inside. Guilt will get you for the rest of your life.”

“It doesn’t for some people. So I’ve heard.”

“Those kinda people ain’t people,” Goodnight said dismissively. “People who can kill without feelin’ bad about it? Or worse, feelin’ _good_ about it? Aw hell. I’ve met people like that before, in the Army.” He shuddered. “Always felt that was the difference between people and animals. Animals don’t feel bad when they kill each other. People _should_.” 

Billy was strangely silent for the rest of the ride home, and Goodnight dozed through most of it, exhausted. He cleaned up on autopilot and let Billy pour him into their bed, where he snuggled up quickly, yawning, curling up against Billy’s warmth. “You’ve been real quiet,” Goodnight murmured sleepily. “Everythin’ all right?” 

Lips pressed briefly against his forehead, then Billy stroked a palm over the back of his head, petting his hair. Tired out, Goodnight dozed off without waiting for an answer. Regret was so often a consequence of hindsight.

2016

Faraday rolled up into the ranch compound behind the truck, just in time to see Emma jogging out after Red, who was marching towards a spare car. He turned when she got close, saying something angrily, then he paused and glanced over as Faraday got out of the car and ambled over, curious.

“Got what you guys were looking for?” Emma asked, peering over at the truck. 

“Yeah. Where’s Chisolm?” 

“Out with Horne and Vasquez, scouting. They’ll be back soon.” This last bit seemed to be said at Red, who shrugged. 

“I am needed elsewhere,” Red said curtly. 

“Wait, you’re bailing? Now?” Faraday raised his eyebrows. “Shit, what’s with everyone? First the token Asian, now the token uhh, Native American.” 

Red wrinkled his nose. This close up, Red was imposing, his hair buzzed down into a pelt-like mohawk that hugged his sun-browned skin. He was wearing fatigues, his military tags worn over his gray shirt, and he had an M9 Beretta at his hip, a black duffle bag slung over a shoulder that most certainly probably held some manner of carbine. 

“I told you,” Emma said soothingly. “I’m doing my best to intervene. Mortensen Inc knows some friendly senators—”

“My people are fighting a war. I should be there. Not here. Your war is not my war.”

“Hang on a sec,” Faraday said, growing more and more puzzled. “It _is_ 2016, right? Not the 1800s? _Your_ people? Fighting what war?” 

“The Dakota pipeline,” Emma explained, if with a touch of impatience. “The Standing Rock Sioux have been protesting it for months. Along with other tribes, environmentalists and such.”

“Big trouble today,” Red growled. “I should have been there.” 

“So,” Faraday said slowly, “basically they’re… building a pipeline over… an important bit of land?” 

“And under the Missouri River. It’s the main source of drinking water for the reservation. Oil spills aren’t uncommon.” Emma looked even more uncomfortable. “Technically the tribes are meant to be properly consulted. They’ve got a reasonable case. Doesn’t mean that they’d win in a court of law, though.”

“Ah, I see,” Faraday hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Looks like I was wrong. It _is_ kinda still like the 1800s. Screwing you guys out of land is pretty much what’s been going on for hundreds of years, yeah? Same old. Way I see it, one man can’t really make much of a difference. What are you gonna do? You draw a gun down there, in a protest, you’d get shot on all sides. Maybe get your friends shot, too.”

“Faraday,” Emma warned, even as Red narrowed his eyes. 

“Make your point. Carefully.”

“One man with a gun can’t shift forces like that. You need lawyers and politicians and money to make big stuff work your way in the free world nowadays. I’m guessing you got none of those working for you right now. _She_ does.” Faraday nodded at Emma. “Way I see it, if she’s really willing to help you, that’s probably a better deal than you taking the next flight back to… uh… whichever Dakota it was. North? South?” 

“North,” Red said absently. “What can you do?” he asked, turning to Emma. “ _You_ also own a petroleum company.”

“But we don’t build shit over reservations,” Emma said shortly, “and we’re reinvesting in clean energy. I’m hoping to make my current source of income a minor or obsolete branch in the next five years. That being said. My lawyers will file an amicus brief in the upcoming case, I’ll make a call to some senators, _and_ I’ll arrange for some stories to be sponsored in the major papers. Get some camera crews on the ground. That should work for some breathing space.”

“Breathing space,” Red repeated, unmoved. 

“The Administration is going to have to get more involved for any sort of real victory. If not the current one, then the next.” Emma paused. “Whichever that may be.” 

Red frowned at her, then at Faraday, then to Faraday’s surprise, Red said gruffly, “Fine,” and skirted around them, heading for the truck. 

Faraday exhaled. “Whoo. That was close.”

“Thanks for the assist. I think.” Emma said dryly. “What’s in those?” she asked, watching Red approach Billy and Goodnight in the shadow of the truck, the tarp pushed back to show the first barrel. 

“I was hoping it was beer, but apparently not. Not explosives either. So. Heck if I know,” Faraday admitted brightly. “Now if you don’t mind me. I’m gonna get myself some more whisky. Mighty parched.” 

“Must be nice for life to be so simple,” Emma told him, though she smiled faintly. 

“Lady, anyone who makes life complicated just ain’t trying hard enough to be happy.”

2017

The first warning sign was a white flash, winking over from the hills, the sun catching on some kind of lens. Already starting on his first bottle of the day, Faraday was inclined to assume it was a tourist. Birdwatcher, maybe. But when it flashed again, Vasquez swore, grabbed him by the elbow, and dragged him into the house.

“We packing up?” Faraday asked, glancing out of the window. 

“No. Stay away from window.” 

“No? What’s the freak out, then? If you think it’s trouble, maybe we should go.”

Vasquez eyed him with some surprise. “Run? Where to run, with enemy already here? This house built well. Quiet lands. Good cover. We run, we get chased, maybe we die out in mountains.” 

“I don’t know,” Faraday said blandly, rolling down the metal shutters over the windows as Vasquez gestured impatiently. “Getting chased over the plains by a posse sounds kinda exciting.” When Vasquez rolled his eyes, Faraday added, “Maybe we’re overreacting. Maybe they’re tourists.” 

“Out here? Nothing to see.” 

“Maybe they’re friends,” Faraday suggested vaguely, though he didn’t know anyone who’d bother to come all the way out here without calling ahead first to reassure a couple of twitchy outlaws. 

Vasquez rolled his eyes, shuttering the other windows briskly. They circled the house, locking and shuttering, a quick loop that Vasquez had long forced Faraday to get used to. Before, Faraday had brushed it off as paranoia. Now that shit had possibly hit the fan, though, he was faced with the uncomfortable realisation that maybe, just maybe, he’d been real complacent in his naivety. 

Another glance out of the windows was even less promising. A black SUV sat on top of the road down into the valley, idling in the sun. “Shit,” Faraday said aloud.

“Here.” Vasquez shoved something into his hands that Faraday nearly dropped in his surprise. His Berettas, already in their holsters. He drew Ethel, and she fit easily into his palm, always, an old friend that Faraday knew he could no longer reliably guide. Even in the circumstances, he felt a dull pit opening in his stomach as he holstered her again.

“Vasquez.”

“What?” Vasquez was buckling on his own holster. 

Self-doubt ebbed up, only to be swallowed back down as Vasquez drew one of his CZs, twirling it, a quick playful flip one way, then another, then back into the holster. Then Vasquez grinned at him, that sly and feral coyote grin that always made Faraday’s cock twitch in anticipation in his jeans, nowadays. 

“Shit.” Faraday let Vasquez buckle on his holster, long fingers nimble and familiar over his hips. Having Ethel and Maria in place felt like he was locking away his doubt, his personal disappointments, his failures. Vasquez kissed him, hard on the mouth. No lover’s tenderness, only the ruthless edge of mayhem, bleeding off Vasquez like a near-palpable heat. 

Outside, a second SUV had joined the first, then a third. The cars began to trundle cautiously down to the house, even as Vasquez came back with a pair of hunting rifles. “I’ve never had to use one of these before,” Faraday admitted. When Vasquez raised his eyebrows, Faraday added defensively, “Not like I’m in a habit of hunting animals. Never saw the point when they can’t shoot back.” 

“Metal shutters, no glass. You put muzzle through gap—”

“Yes, I don’t need that kinda in-depth tutorial, thanks.” 

“You aim through sights and pull trigger.” Vasquez grinned again when Faraday sighed, and said something in Spanish that seemed more affectionate than mocking. Faraday couldn’t always tell. He slunk off to one of the windows instead to take position, watching. On the other window beside the main door, Vasquez was fiddling with what looked like an old Nokia phone, comically tiny in his large palm. 

“Really?” Faraday stared at him. “ _Most_ people at least use an iPhone nowadays.” 

Vasquez ignored him, shooting glances up at the window, then he pressed a final button on the phone. On the dirt road leading down, there was a sudden explosive burst of dirt and grass, flipping one of the SUVs up into the air to land flat on its back. 

The others slewed to a halt. “Shit!” Faraday yelped. “We didn’t even know if they were—” Outside, armed men were pouring out of the other SUVs, all armed with assault rifles. “Okay. I take that back.” 

“Less talking, more shooting, _güerito_ ,” Vasquez said, already taking aim with his rifle. “And maybe we get out alive.” 

Later, when the dust had settled, they packed their remaining supplies into the back of one of the SUVs and looted the bodies, then left them in the basement of the house. Vasquez seemed strangely philosophical about it all, absolutely unfazed. As if they’d spent the afternoon mowing the lawn or something rather than a pitched battle in the middle of nowhere. 

“People try to kill you that often?” Faraday asked, once they were on the road again. 

Vasquez smirked. “Often enough.” 

“That’s a crazy way to live,” Faraday told him. He wasn’t sure what he thought about it.

“Your way too, now. You think you can go to Mexico and destroy a cartel, then come back home and lie on beach? End of story?” Vasquez laughed. “You fire a gun in a fight, you kill, you make enemies. It comes back to you. It always comes back. In this world, _guero_ , nobody gets away with anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ref:  
> NoDAPL is ramping up: http://www.vox.com/2016/9/9/12862958/dakota-access-pipeline-fight


	7. Chapter 7

2016

The lull before an op was always bad for his nerves. Goodnight had never gotten into the habit of just switching off, like some other people could. Downstairs, in the big kitchen, Faraday, Vasquez, Emma, Horne and even Red were drinking homemade sangria and telling increasingly incomprehensible jokes. Even with the door and window closed, he could hear Faraday loudly telling some story about his pistols that was probably untrue, while Vasquez laughed along, egging him on. Both Billy and Chisolm had quickly made themselves scarce somewhere. Goodnight could relate to that.

He was sitting in the guest room he’d been given, staring at the wall. Years back, someone had painted it a cheerful yellow, and tried to dot splodgy flowers along the border. There was a small desk by the window and a little stool, but the rest of the furniture that would’ve matched the flower print paint was gone, replaced by an old mattress that had clearly been hastily pulled up from storage, yellowed and with creaky springs. There was a worn sense of dislocation in the room, as though Goodnight was intruding. Some child had once had this room, Goodnight guessed, in better days. Some family had once loved this house, which now stored a pack of killers.

Goodnight sat on the mattress and cleaned his .300, letting himself get lulled by the repetition. Rituals always calmed him down. By the time a patch read white through the bore, the world felt nicely still: even the noise downstairs seemed to be ebbing into an inaudible murmur. He was about to reassemble the rifle when there was a brisk knock on the door.

“Yeah,” Goodnight said distractedly, thinking it was Chisolm, wanting to go over some last-minute details. 

He blinked and nearly fumbled the bolt when Billy let himself into the room, freezing up in surprise. Billy glanced at his hands, expressionless, and Goodnight hesitated for a moment before finishing the reassembly quickly and packing the rifle away, abruptly self-conscious. He was about to wipe the oil and grime off his palms with a rag when Billy went from standing by the door to climbing into his lap; Goodnight got a fleeting glance of the hungry intensity in Billy’s eyes before he got pushed down onto the creaky mattress. A knee rubbed up between his legs, and, hell, Goodnight was well into his forties, but Billy always still ran his blood hot with simple gestures. 

“Let me—my _hands_ ,” Goodnight protested, but Billy ignored him, pinning him down to kiss him, licking demandingly into his mouth. 

Groaning, Goodnight gave up, smearing handprints into Billy’s pristine white shirt, dragging him down with fistfuls of soft fabric, already desperate. If they weren’t deploying in a few hours, Goodnight would’ve begged Billy to fuck him, never mind where they were or the years that had built up between them. Billy’s cock was hard against his flank, rubbing up to his belly, and Goodnight braced his heels against the mattress and rode up Billy’s knee, whining between breaths. He wasn’t even sure what had been the breaking point: Billy had said not a word to him since they’d parked the truck at the ranch. Right now, though, Goodnight didn’t care. 

Billy was navigating Goodnight’s belt deftly, then the button and zip, getting a hand over his boxers and squeezing tight. It _hurt_ , but Goodnight pressed his hips into the pressure anyway, with a raw noise that made Billy smile above him, all bared teeth. God, he was gorgeous. 

“Wish we had a bit more time,” Goodnight managed to gasp, tipping up his chin to let Billy set bites down his throat. 

Billy rumbled something, hot against his skin, and started stroking him, slow, rubbing his boxers over his cock. So far, so good. Goodnight managed a couple of the buttons on Billy’s shirt, then gave up and went for his belt instead. Chuckling, Billy spat on his palm, not even bothering to help, and shoved Goodnight’s underwear and pants down, just enough so that he could get his hand on Goodnight’s aching cock. 

“Shit,” Goodnight breathed, dazed, and Billy grinned again before getting Goodnight’s shirt open one-handed with those clever fingers. When Billy got his teeth on a nipple, Goodnight bucked, with another raw moan. He loved it whenever Billy got into these moods, when he bit and got impatient and more often than not usually ended up fucking Goodnight so hard that the bed rattled the walls. “Couldn’t you have come up here earlier?” Goodnight growled, wiping his hands down on the mattress, rucking Billy’s shirt up out of his pants. Billy chuckled, and bit harder, making Goodnight flinch. “Fuck! You… God, I’ve _missed_ you,” Goodnight rasped, close to babbling. “I’ve missed you. Why’d you go, Billy? Why’d—”

He bit the rest of the words down belatedly, freezing up, but Billy only paused for a moment. Then he shifted down, with his usual easy grace, and before Goodnight could even get his bearings again, Billy was lapping at the tip of his cock, laving the swell, getting it spit-wet, licking up whatever leaked with a low hum of satisfaction. Goddamned tease. “C’mon,” Goodnight begged, scraped to the end of his tether. “Please, just _please_. Please. _Please_.” 

Billy growled but obliged, sucking him down, one hand around what he couldn’t take, the other arm folded over Goodnight’s belly, pinning him down. Making him take it. Every maddeningly slow lazy bob, every teasing lick as Billy pulled off with that careful, considering look, like Goodnight was something he was methodically picking apart. Goodnight clutched awkwardly at Billy’s shoulders, then scratched, weakly at first when Billy ignored him, then nails in, clawing until Billy chuckled and swallowed him back down, sucking loudly. It was sloppy and obscene and Goodnight was yowling, trying instinctively to twist away. Release knocked him off-centre. Disoriented, Goody lay limp, panting, as Billy lazily licked him clean and tucked him away. 

When Goodnight caught his breath, he grabbed blindly for the hem of Billy’s pants, only for Billy to quickly pin his wrist to the mattress. _What…?_ Goodnight snuck a glance down. Billy’s erection was obvious, tenting tailored fabric. “Lemme…” Goodnight cleared his throat. “Lemme help you with that.” 

“Later.” Billy’s voice was as even as ever. 

“What d’you mean, later? We’re shippin’ out soon.” 

“And you need to rest.” 

“You don’t want me to?” Goodnight asked, unable to resist probing at the problem. Maybe that was it. A pity assist. Satiation soured quickly: that _had_ to be it, Goodnight had, after all, fallen right back into old habits and—

“Goody,” Billy said, narrowing his eyes, and Goodnight hadn’t heard _that_ in Billy’s voice before, that uneven rasp, like the tiniest chink in his usually formidable armour. “Yes. I do want you to suck me off.” He leaned in, his hand curled tight into Goodnight’s collar, lips against his ear, and here was the hunting cat after all, under all those iron bands of self-control, snarling into his ear. “I want to fuck you, mark you, make you mine again.” When Goodnight let out a small gasp, teeth grated briefly against his cheek. “But like you said. We’re leaving soon.” 

Blindsided, Goodnight lay still and stared as Billy let him go and set his own clothes to rights. There were greasy hand prints down his back, smeared to his waist, but he didn’t seem to notice. “If we get through this,” Goodnight began, “are you… what are you—”

“I don’t know,” Billy said neutrally, avoiding his eyes. “People generally prefer not to take up with animals, don’t they?” 

Goodnight stared at him, completely puzzled for a long moment, before the distant memory booted up, and he flushed. “Aww c’mon. I was _drunk_ when I said that. And how the fuck was I meant to know about you?” 

“And you meant it. As you should. Most people would think that way.” Billy’s lip curled up sharply, briefly. “Normal people.” 

“Can’t you stop?” Goodnight blurted out. “Stop taking jobs? You’re rich already, I know you are.” 

Billy said nothing, buttoning up his shirt. On an impulse, Goodnight grabbed for the back of his shoulder and his arm, dragging him over and down. Billy resisted, only for a second, then he let Goodnight push him onto the mattress and climb on top, bracing his palms over Billy’s shoulders. “I think you still care about me,” Goodnight said slowly, and he exhaled in relief when Billy merely narrowed his eyes. “God knows why you do, or how that even got started. And _I_ still care about you. That’s never changed. Heaven knows I’ve tried. Can’t we just… go back to what we were?” 

Fingertips grazed over Goodnight’s cheek, and slid down to his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “No one can turn back time. Pretending will only make things worse.”

“Pretending about what?”

“That what I do—what I _am_ —doesn’t matter to you. That I can just retire and move on. That we can be normal people together.” 

“I want to _try_ ,” Goodnight confessed, in a small voice. “Please.”

Billy went perfectly still, studying Goodnight with his intense, impossibly unreadable eyes. Then he kissed Goodnight on the cheek and wormed out from under him, getting to his feet. There was nothing more to say.

2015

Having been fairly sure that he’d passed out drunk on the couch, Goodnight woke up in bed with a sense of confused dislocation that fed quickly into sheer panic. Was Billy here? Who else would’ve gotten in and put him abed? He stumbled blindly to the bathroom, washing his face in cold water, trying to shock himself awake. Then he froze. There was a rattle, a muffled thump. Someone was moving stuff downstairs. Tidying up? He could hear books being slotted onto the shelves.

Goodnight stared at his reflection anxiously. Pale. Dark circles under his eyes. At least a week’s worth of stubble. Fuck. He wasn’t in the least really presentable to any kinda polite society. Goodnight picked up his shaver, then it occurred to him that Billy could just as likely slip away at any time, while Goodnight was getting cleaned up. Besides, it wasn’t as though embarrassing himself in front of Billy was new. In the end, he settled for just pulling on a new shirt, heart in his mouth as he almost tumbled down the stairs in his haste, clutching at the rail. 

At the small living room, Chisolm glanced up at him with some surprise, a book still in hand, standing before the shelves that he was patiently setting to rights. “Goody. Hey. Cleaned up a little here. Hope you don’t mind.” 

“How’d you get in?” Goodnight asked, blinking owlishly. 

“Back door was unlocked.” Chisolm said lightly, though concern was written all over his face.

Goodnight glanced at the couch. The rows of whisky bottles were gone, probably washed and put out for recycling, knowing Chisolm. He looked blearily at the windows, trying to parse the warm light. “What time is it?”

“Near noon.”

“Shit. Let me get cleaned up.” Goodnight dragged himself back upstairs, trying not to feel crushingly disappointed. The hell was Chisolm even _doing_ here, anyway? Goodnight didn’t bother to shave, but he did brush his teeth and pull on some jeans. Disappointment had faded into sheepishness by the time he got back down and realized that Chisolm had straightened up the hallway and the living room, and was now frowning at the kitchen in bemusement, which currently housed a collection of IKEA boxes. 

“Been uh. Replacin’ the furniture,” Goodnight said weakly. With whatever he could afford out of his small inheritance from his grandfather, nohow. “Needed a change.” Too many things about the house reminded Goodnight painfully of Billy, but he couldn’t afford to move, not without putting himself seriously in debt. He’d tried to just replace things instead: the furniture, the books, even the goddamned _cups_. Most of the new purchases still sat in their boxes. 

After all, it hadn't worked. Some days, even simple things like _washing his face_ reminded Goodnight of Billy. 

“I can help you with the table and chairs. Those things are fiddly.” 

“No, there’s no need,” Goodnight protested, but COs never stopped being COs, and Goodnight ended up forcing the old coffee machine to cough up a couple of cups while Chisolm sat on the floor of the kitchen, carefully sorting all the screws into rows, the instruction manual in his lap. 

It was growing late out when they finished and stacked the packaging out the back. Goodnight ordered in pizza and located a couple of bottles of beer in the back of the ‘fridge that still tasted all right. “Mind tellin’ me why you’re here?” Goodnight asked finally, as they both sat by the new table, drinking. 

“Didn’t occur to you to ask me that hours ago?” 

“Well it did, but you seemed to be havin’ real fun figurin’ out what the hell you screwed in wrong and where.” 

Chisolm snorted, taking a long gulp of his beer. “Just checking in on you.”

“What’s the occasion?” 

This got him a long, thoughtful look. “Seems you’ve been drinking on that couch for days.” 

“How the hell did you… is this a CIA thing? Mass surveillance?”

“That’s the NSA, and no. You’ve just got a nice lady living next door, name of Mrs Sheffield.”

“The retiree with the chihuahuas?” Billy had hated those dogs. 

“Yeah. Lovely lady, very helpful. Told her you’ve been going through a bad patch, and that I was worried about you, and if she ever grew mighty concerned about anything, I asked her to give me a call.” 

“When did you do that?” 

“Last year. After you left Virginia. Needed to know that someone was keeping an eye on you.” 

“Could’ve just called me rather than flyin’ all the way down here.”

“I did, Goody,” Chisolm said gently. “You didn’t pick up. I got worried.” Shit. Goodnight must’ve forgotten to charge his phone again. “‘Sides. We haven’t talked for a while.” 

“So what have you been up to?” Goodnight asked obligingly, and listened to Chisolm talk about non-answers. Man was still in the CIA, then, though he was thinking of quitting, maybe going into private consulting. He was growing long in the tooth and wasn’t interested in going into management. No wife yet, no kids. 

Goodnight had just finished his beer when Chisolm asked, casually, “What about you?” 

“What d’you think?” 

“Not sure what I’m meant to think,” Chisolm said mildly. “In a way, you haven’t really changed all that much in all the years that I’ve known you.” 

Goodnight let out a harsh laugh. “You’ve seen through me. I’ve always been a miserable bastard. Deep down.”

Chisolm sighed. “Wasn’t what I said. Annie used to say that you were the most intense person she’d ever met. Take everything real seriously, overthink everything.”

“I probably do,” Goodnight agreed cautiously. He’d always been wary of bringing up the murders around Chisolm. Man could be hard to read. “She was a lawyer. They’ve made a profession out of always bein’ right.” 

“It’s funny,” Chisolm said thoughtfully. “Going back. On the third Thanksgiving or so that Billy couldn’t go because of sudden business, she got concerned. Said that not coming to Thanksgiving was one thing, but no pictures ever was kinda weird.” 

“I’m not really a social media sort of person.” Goodnight muttered uneasily. Being mostly a private kinda person himself, he’d respected Billy’s dislike of photos, and hadn’t even thought twice about how neither of them had ever really gotten around to meeting each other’s friends. He wasn’t really sure whether he wanted to even talk about this. But the scar tissue had grown in, if barely, and just thinking about Billy being missing, somewhere else and never coming back, no longer hurt as much as it did. 

“She thought you were making him up altogether,” Chisolm said, chuckling. 

“I take back what I said about lawyers bein’ right all the time.” Despite himself, Goodnight managed a smile. He could completely imagine Annie coming to that kinda conclusion. Over the table, Chisolm’s smile wavered, then fell off his face completely. Warily, Goodnight asked, “You sure _you’re_ doin’ all right?” 

“I’m keeping,” Chisolm said easily, with a toothy, mirthless smile. “Think that’s the best I can do for a while.” 

“Does it get better?” Goodnight asked, then he flushed a little, as his words caught up to him. “Uh. That’s to say. I mean. I’m not saying that what happened to me is in any way, remotely as awful as—”

“Nobody’s counting,” Chisolm cut in, finishing his own beer meditatively. “What happened to you hurt you real bad as well. I can see that. The way I see it, it’s all right to stop for a while, to take stock. It’s all right. Life grinds everybody down. Some worse than others. Eventually, you got to pick yourself up again. In your own time. And if you need help getting there, well, don’t you ever feel bad about asking for it from me.” 

“Thanks,” Goodnight said, a little unsteadily. “You’re a good man, Sam.”

“Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Chisolm said easily, with his toothy, mirthless smile, but before Goodnight could disagree, the doorbell buzzed, and by the time he came back with the pizza, he’d forgotten about it. 

Goodnight had been blind to it then, far too worn down by his own pain. Life may have ground Sam Chisolm down, cored him out, but when his grief had faded, hatred crept in, bit by bit, and then it had festered. It had been hatred that kept Sam Chisolm moving forward, thinking, waiting. Checking in on the people he would need, and keeping tabs on their levers. A year on and wiser, Goodnight would wonder if things would’ve worked out differently if he had noticed it then, but he doubted it. It had been Bogue who had chosen war, not Chisolm, but Chisolm always walked each road to the bitter end, stubborn to the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Refs:  
> Chris Kyle (American Sniper)’s preferred rifle and comments: http://precisionrifleblog.com/2015/01/17/american-sniper-chris-kyle-rifles/  
> http://shootinjh.com/how-to-clean-a-rifle-according-to-shepard-humphries/


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long weekend so... early chapter! rushing, rushing :o

2016

In the original Plan that Faraday had read, Goodnight was meant to take up position in the bell tower of an old church, some distance from the fort. Now that Billy had decided to intervene, though, there was a sleek black helicopter waiting for them at the airfield, the pilot getting out to greet them when they got close.

As people started loading the barrels on the truck into Emma’s cargo plane in the dim light of portable lamps, Faraday whistled, grinning. “Lord find me a man who’d buy me a helicopter to keep me safe,” he said facetiously, and winked when Billy rolled his eyes. 

“I didn’t buy it for this job,” Billy said curtly, as they approached the helicopter. 

“What, so you just have a helicopter lying around? Just in case?” Must be fun to be a top-flight assassin. 

Billy ignored him, speaking to the helicopter’s pilot softly in Korean. Faraday snuck a glance over at Goodnight, who was surprisingly quiet: he was looking at the helicopter, his face pale and drained. He was _frightened_. Warily, Faraday took a closer look. The cabin door facing them was open, with a black sling tacked on to the frame, presumably for the ugly looking rifle that Goodnight was cradling. Nothing to it, right? 

“So uh,” Faraday nodded at the dark sky, “you do a lot of shooting from these things?” 

“Every situation you could imagine and then some.” At least Goodnight didn’t look like he was hopped up on anything. 

“Really? Even at night?” 

This got him a surprised look. “People invented night vision devices in the 1920s,” Goodnight pointed out dryly, though some of the fear seemed to go out of him. 

“I meant. Shooting from a helicopter, night vision, through whatever the hell they’re dropping in that fort, you gonna be all right?”

“I’ll try my best not to shoot you by accident, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Goodnight narrowed his eyes. “I’d be more concerned about yourself, if I were you. Have you ever been in a war?” 

“Can’t say I have.” 

“This is going to be interestin’ for you, then.” Goodnight said quietly. “I can’t say that it’s been a good idea for Sam to take you here, no matter what he might’ve seen you do. Just follow orders, try to keep your nerve, and you might get outta this alive.” 

“Gonna be the same for you, ain’t it?” Faraday inquired innocently. He’d never liked being lectured. “Follow orders, keep _your_ nerve.” Goodnight grimaced, looking away. “When’s the last time you fired a gun, sir?” 

“Month or so back. I try to keep in practice.” 

“Well, since we’re all the way out in the middle of nowhere right now, how ‘bout you give me a demonstration?” Faraday drawled. “That tree way over there. Could you break that lowest branch?” 

“Sure. But we’d be wasting bullets.” 

“Aww, c’mon. I’ve _seen_ your ammo supply. If you’re going to end up shooting the lot, we could probably wipe out a small district in a _city_ —” Faraday cut himself off as Billy approached, his expression neutral, though his eyes were murderous. “Hey. We all sorted?” 

“We are.” Billy jerked his thumb over at the cargo plane and the black vans parked beside it. “You go there. Now.”

Faraday raised his hands, palms up. “All right, all right. I’m going.” 

Billy glowered at him until Faraday retreated in the direction of the cargo plane. Then Billy was leaning over, murmuring something to Goodnight, their heads bent together as Billy stroked his arm, as though soothing a startled colt. Goodnight climbed into the helicopter with open reluctance, ducking out of sight. 

“You like to pull tiger’s tail, _guero_ ,” Vasquez said mildly behind him. 

“I’m just concerned about having a twitchy guy with a high calibre rifle watching my back, that’s all.” 

“‘Twitchy guy’ has over hundred, two hundred confirmed kills, no?” Vasquez grinned sharply. “Think he maybe kill more people than all of us have before, combined.”

“Really? Even ‘Billy’?”

“Assassins don’t kill that many people. Especially not that kind of assassin. What for? If people pay you big money to kill people, why do extra for free?” 

“…I actually can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Faraday admitted, as he got into the back of one of the vans. “Hell, this entire experience is getting kinda surreal.” 

Vasquez climbed in after him, sitting on the bench as he kitted up efficiently: bulletproof vest, earpiece, guns check, strapping in. On the opposite bench, Red was already ready, though he was ignoring them, checking something grimly on his phone. Faraday struggled with the vest, having actually never even touched one before, and in the end, Faraday clucked his tongue and helped out, his fingers warm and nimble and quick. Yeah. Goodnight was right. Faraday grinned to himself. This was gonna be interesting. It was gonna be _awesome_.

“Something funny, _mijo_?” Vasquez asked, amused. 

“I feel like I’m roleplaying some kinda Call of Duty game.” Faraday had to raise his voice: beyond, the helicopter was starting up, rotor blades beginning to churn. “This is _great_.”

Red rolled his eyes, though he didn’t look up from his phone. Vasquez, on the other hand, grinned broadly, touched with the same ferocious love of mayhem. “You _loco_ ,” he said, and laughed. “But you’re right. Enjoy it. No better way to feel alive.” 

Teddy climbed in to the driver’s seat, but before Faraday could object about them putting their lives into the hands of someone who really still just reminded him of an car salesman, Red had closed the van doors. Then they were off, gravel crackling under the wheels, while the _whoop-whoop-whoop_ of the helicopter’s rotors turned into a roar. Leaning forward against the small grilled opening that let Faraday peer out through the windscreen. Chisolm’s car had pulled out ahead of them. The loaded plane would wait for Chisolm’s signal before taking off to catch up. 

“Why didn’t we just attack at midnight or something?” Faraday asked, as they swung down to the dirt road, heading away from the private airfield. 

“Will be ‘KGB hour’,” Vasquez explained. “No?” This was directed at Red, who frowned at the both of them before finally putting his phone away. 

“CO calls the shots,” was all Red was willing to say.

“See-Oh? What’s that?” 

“Commanding officer, _cabrón_ ,” Vasquez said. He was crowded close, knee to knee, also looking through the grille. Normally, Faraday would have shoved back. Right now, though, as they wound towards war, it felt perfectly normal to be pressed so close, breathing in Vasquez’s scent, cigarettes and leather and musk. 

“How’d _you_ know American military slang?” Faraday asked, because it felt like he had to say something just to breathe. “You’re _Mexican_.” 

“Americans are everywhere,” Vasquez said expansively, gesturing at Faraday and Red both. “And I know a lot of them. Some of them more than others.” He leered at Faraday, who flushed, then looked away quickly to try and hide it, back out at the windscreen. 

“You couldn’t take me,” Faraday shot back anyway, because he’d always been fond of the last word, and he found himself grinning as he said it, teeth bared. Vasquez’s ferocity was contagious. 

Vasquez’s eyes seemed to darken, then he smiled, his teeth a white gash in the dark of the van. “ _Ya veremos_ ,” he said, and breathed deep, as though scenting for prey. “ _Ya veremos_.”

2013

Goodnight wasn’t really sure where they were. He stood on the white sand, shading his eyes, staring out at the crystal-clear sea. To his left and right, the unbroken beach stretched, pristine, bordered by a richly rambling forest, that sang out at him with birds and insects. With the sun beating warm on his back, the whole situation felt completely surreal, like some kinda opium dream.

“This is crazy,” Goodnight said out aloud, and behind him, Billy laughed. 

“You should have a swim.”

“Sharks?” 

“Maybe. Small ones.” 

“Pretty sure even small sharks bite.” 

“Why? Do you have anything that you’re that scared of losing?” Billy was still laughing at him when Goodnight turned around and pretended to march up to him in a high dudgeon. 

It was hard to even hold on to a feigned temper, though. Stretched languidly on a mat on the warm sand just under the tree line, Billy was only wearing a pair of black Speedos, and that was a whole new level of surreality. Billy hadn’t ever seemed to like being fully naked where anyone could see him, a strange sort of shyness that Goodnight had never quite understood: the man was _perfect_ , with a body that a swimsuit model could only aspire to. 

Maybe it was the scars, of which there were a few, mostly old, apparently gathered from South Korea’s mandatory military service. _I was a very clumsy conscript_ , Billy said once, then he had smiled, oddly secretive. Goodnight had assumed they were accidents, especially the long gash that ran along Billy’s flank, up near his spine. God knew that 18 year old boys tended to do stupid things, let alone in a military setting. 

“You’re not sellin’ it very well,” Goodnight breathed, and Billy smiled and shook his head when Goodnight straddled his hips, grinding down. He could feel Billy firm up nicely under him, nudging up just behind his balls.

“I go to all the trouble to borrow a private island for a week from a friend for our anniversary,” Billy rubbed his fingertips in slow circles up Goodnight’s thighs, “and you only want to fuck?” He smirked. 

“Firstly, I still can’t believe that you know someone who actually owns a goddamned _private island_ ,” Goodnight said dryly. “Hell, I think it’s mighty weird that you don’t even want to tell me who he is. Seriously, who is it? Korean politician? Mafia? K-pop producer?” 

Billy had gone carefully still, but only for a second. “How do you even know what k-pop is?” He asked lightly. 

“Hah! I knew it,” Goodnight said triumphantly, as Billy relaxed. “Also, it wasn’t really me. When I told Ella that you were Korean, she sent me a lot of weird music videos…” He trailed off, blinking for a moment, _remembering_. There would be no more texts from Ella, pleading for him to talk sense into her brother/sister/mother. There would be no more weird links to Korean music videos.

“Goody,” Billy began soberly, but Goodnight leaned up to kiss him, instead, kissing until Billy relaxed again, hands stroking up Goodnight’s spine. “Some are pretty weird,” Billy conceded, as Goodnight kissed down to his neck, chasing the salty taste of sweat, breathing deep. “No, the island isn’t owned by someone like that.” 

“Mm. Then what? Rich businessman? Someone from Samsung, maybe?” There had even been a goddamned _private plane_ : it had picked them up from Sacramento International, with a Korean pilot and a peppy, blonde female assistant/stewardess/manager who had been extremely, efficiently friendly. Apparently she ran the island. At the airfield on the island, there was a H-pad, occupied with a sleek black helicopter that looked kinda military. Rich people liked to buy modded Sikorskys, maybe. 

“Doubt it’s anything as legitimate as that,” Billy said, going a little breathless as Goodnight kissed down those perfect abs to the cock tenting his speedos, licking up over the fabric. 

“Whoever it is, he’s some kinda gun nut, that’s for sure.” Goodnight mouthed lazily over the stretch, and grinned as fingers closed in his hair. 

“Why’d you say that?” Billy asked distractedly, pushing his hips pointedly up. 

“Who the hell builds a gun range on a private island? A golf course I would get, maybe a tennis court, a zoo, a big swimming pool… but a _gun range_?” 

“How many private islands have you seen?” Billy pointed out, and all right, Billy did have a point. 

“True. How many islands have _you_ been on? I didn’t think that consultants really lived the high life.” 

Billy chuckled, and pushed lightly at Goodnight’s head. “More than you would think.” Goodnight took the hint, tugging Billy’s speedos off. Then he had to stare and drink his fill: Billy was everything that could be perfect in a man’s form, powerfully built, yet elegantly lean, muscles tapering down to gorgeous thighs, and of course that nice, fat cock. Billy pulled impatiently at his shoulders for a second, then he lay back, grinning. “What?” 

“You’re askin’ me?” Goodnight raised his eyebrows. “All the art of all the old masters in the world have nothin’ on how gorgeous you are, darlin’.” 

Billy shrugged, always supremely indifferent to these kinds of compliments. “Things pass. Everyone grows old.” 

“Sweetheart, you have got some of the weirdest responses to things that I’ve ever heard.” Goodnight tucked his palms under Billy’s knees, pulling them up, planting kisses over the soft underside. “I tell you that you really don’t need to be surprisin’ me with these kinds of surprises, and you say ‘What’s the point of havin’ money then?’ I tell you you’re gorgeous, and you say ‘Everybody dies in the end’.” He mimicked Billy’s sober, measured baritone, and Billy smirked at him, clearly unrepentant. 

“And _I_ tell you we could move somewhere else, nicer than Sacramento: New York, London… Paris, if you want, and you say, ‘what’s wrong with Sacramento?'” 

“My point stands,” Goodnight said, feigning bewilderment, and kissed up Billy’s other thigh when Billy chuckled. He wouldn’t move out of that small house, not for the world, not with five years of Billy and shared memories folded into it, everything that he was familiar with, everything that he needed. If the house and Billy were the last stop of all the roads he had walked in his life, the final confluence point, Goodnight would be more than happy with that. 

Billy eventually got impatient, tugging pointedly at Goodnight’s shorts until he got them off, but instead of straddling Billy again, Goodnight offered him a playful grin and licked a stripe up his cock instead, wet and slow, then another when Billy relaxed and sighed. “Your mouth, Goody,” Billy growled, and Goodnight obliged, taking Billy into his mouth, hands curled over Billy’s hips, letting Billy guide him, nice and slow. Left to himself, Goodnight would’ve tried to take in more, gag himself trying, but Billy seemed to prefer it like this, careful and thorough and controlled. 

Today it didn’t take long until Goodnight could feel Billy starting to tense up against him, then he was being hauled off and up, kissed long and deep. He could hear Billy groping for the lube, but he ignored that, breaths compressing into low whines, just kissing, the sand warm under the mat beneath them, the sun at his back, nothing but the sea and the singing forest around them. He felt full up from wonder, _whole_ , for the first time in what felt like forever, a perfect moment of happiness. It felt like the best day of his life. His eyes felt bruised with unshed tears.

Goodnight buried his mouth against Billy’s neck, mouthing kisses as Billy hummed, low and predatory, slicked fingers brushing up against Goodnight’s ass before reaching further, pressing over his hole. “ _Billy_ ,” Goodnight gasped, “aww, _c’mon_ ,” he protested, as Billy elected to slick up Goodnight’s balls instead, stroking his cock. “I got clean before we came out here.” 

“Hmm,” Billy purred, up against Goodnight’s ear. “I tell you to get ready to go swimming and you get cleaned up instead?” 

“Always ready for any eventuality,” Goodnight breathed, and pushed his hips against Billy’s grip. Billy obligingly stroked him, if slowly, his free hand rubbing a slick thumb over the rim of Goodnight’s hole, teasing him until Goodnight cursed and grabbed blindly for the lube himself. 

“All right, Goody, all right.” Billy pressed a finger in, easily, all the way to the knuckle, and Goodnight relaxed. 

“Stop takin’ your fuckin’ time.” 

“We _have_ time,” Billy pointed out, but before Goodnight could object, he was pressing in a second finger, carefully slow. 

Everything about Billy during prep was annoyingly controlled, despite Goodnight’s occasional protests that he wasn’t all that fragile. Goodnight always ended up waiting it out instead, a pleasant kinda wait, spent kissing and kissing, his palms pressed over Billy’s cheeks, groaning breathlessly whenever Billy pushed his fingers in a little deeper, a little harder. Billy almost never took the bait. Goodnight would be ready when _Billy_ deemed him ready, not before. Some days Goodnight could get off like this, spread just on Billy’s lovely fingers. Today he held on, barely, whining in impatience by the time Billy started to slick up his own cock, guiding Goodnight closer. 

Goodnight let out a loud growl of visceral satisfaction as he sat on Billy’s cock, grinding him in as deep as he could go. Billy was always so quiet, only the occasional murmured praise or hiss; it would’ve been discouraging if Goodnight couldn’t read the tension in his arms, the shifting grip he had on Goodnight’s hips, feel the way his cock pulsed when Goodnight clenched tight and rolled his hips. Billy let him set the pace and didn’t complain when Goodnight slowed down, wanting to draw this moment out, stretch it forever. Billy had found just the right angle, pushing in deep to just the right spot each time Goodnight ground down to meet him, but ecstasy seemed to pale against how joyous this was, with them together and alone, fitting against each other perfectly. 

The sun was lower against the horizon by the time Goodnight finally took himself in hand, the air starting to get chilly. Billy shook his head, teeth bared, and rolled them around, kissing Goodnight hard on the mouth, mauling him as he held up Goodnight’s hips with apparent ease. Then he kissed Goodnight gently on the neck, panting, hiding his face as he drove down, and it was Billy’s obvious lust more than anything else that pushed Goodnight clean over the edge, set him wailing and clawing down that broad back, panting and bucking weakly until Billy stilled against him, gulping for air. 

They kissed until the world got dark, then they picked their way back to the house, the beach before them made bone-pale by the moon and the cloudless sky. “This is still crazy,” Goodnight told Billy, taking it in. 

“Mm. So you’ve said.” 

“No, really. It’s crazy that someone out there actually lives like this. Or rather. That this place is someone’s summer home or something, and he ain’t even here all the time.” 

Billy’s eyes were full of laughter, even though his expression didn’t change. “The world is larger than a small house in Sacramento.” 

“I know that. I’ve been over lots of it. Thanks to the Army,” Goodnight said absently. Joy had left an imprint so deep today that not even bad memories could touch the fastness of his mood. “I mean. It’s crazy. And kinda sad, too.” 

“Oh?” 

“Haven’t you been around the house? It looks like the owner picked out everythin’ wholesale from some kinda interior design mag. You know. Beautiful and considered and kinda empty all at the same time, like it’s built just for a photo op, like an actual family ain’t really meant to live there. No offense,” Goodnight added cautiously, when Billy said nothing. “I’m real grateful your friend agreed to let us stay here for a bit. Just that there’s nothin’ in the house that tells me anythin’ about him, other than he likes guns and fine things. Doesn’t seem like he has a wife or a partner or kids.” 

“No offense taken,” Billy said easily, though he seemed sober, thoughtful as they walked. Goodnight didn’t mind. It was a nice night, and even silent, he was in good company. “I had an empty life,” Billy volunteered, once they were within sight of the house and its lights. “Then I met you.” 

“You? Yeah, right. I find that hard to believe.” Against the world, Billy always seemed to walk in perfect balance. 

“You find many things hard to believe,” Billy said quietly, and leaned over to kiss Goodnight on the temple, murmuring something in Korean that Goodnight couldn’t understand or catch. 

A year later he would lie alone in bed, wondering what Billy had said. Had it been a confession? The island had been a broad hint, maybe, one that Goodnight had failed to take in, until all the strange things about Billy had finally culminated with _La Vie en Rose_ , broken with static. Or maybe it hadn’t been a hint. Maybe Billy had thought he could live two completely separate lives, with a small overlap now and then. Maybe. 

“ _Quand il me prend dans ses bras_ ,” Goodnight would murmur to the world then, one that seemed kinder a year ago. “ _Il me parle tout bas. Je vois la vie en rose._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kill count: To be one of the “best snipers” atm Goodnight would have to have at least around the same kill count as Chris Kyle (four tours, 160 confirmed, 255 claimed)… which is… kinda crazy when you think about it. I’m not sure that I even personally know 250 people… 
> 
> KGB hour: from Lee Childs books, approx 3am XD;;
> 
> ya veremos: we'll see https://www.duolingo.com/comment/88070
> 
> La Vie en Rose’s full translation: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/la-vie-en-rose-la-vie-en-rose.html-2 the excerpt that Goodnight says is:  
> When he takes me in his arms  
> He speaks to me in a low voice,  
> I see life as if it were rose-tinted.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long weekend = double chapter post

**Warning** : MINOR CHARACTER DEATHS. I don’t write or read major character deaths, but anyone who isn’t a listed pairing in my fics are fair game to me. You’ve been warned.

2016

It was still dark out, but the sky was cloudless, never a great sign. Meant that even with no nav lights on, they probably didn’t have that much of a chance of staying undetected forever. Besides, choppers were noisy, even with whatever was going to happen in the fort, and if Bogue’s men had night vision or radar, they were going to stick out anyway, the longer they hung around. Not ideal.

Thankfully, just like the plans had read, it wasn’t an _actual_ old-fashioned walled fort, more like an encampment walled in with steel gates and barb wire fencing. Most of the buildings were recent: ugly, boxy white prefabs, clustered around a sprawling hacienda, an ornate stone-walled affair of patios and inner gardens and towers. Readjusting to nightvision took no time at all. Goodnight watched the bright pinpoints of gate guards and patrols, keeping his breathing steady, his .300 slung ready at the cabin door. Too late now to take a pill. His palms were sweaty on the grips, and he kept having to look away, his breathing shaky. The parachute gear felt heavy on his shoulders. 

_It’s all right if it gets too much,_ Billy had said to him before he’d boarded, with that terrible gentleness to his voice that Goodnight was now fairly sure was pity. _Jun-seo will take you back to HQ, no questions asked._ Except Goodnight would be leaving Chisolm and the rest to die. He’d be leaving _Billy_ to die, never mind how confident Billy seemed to be.

His breaths were rasping out now in low hisses, and Goodnight gulped the panic down, tried to concentrate on the dull background rumble of the chopper. His ear muffs had cut out the sound of the blades, but Goodnight had always felt better on helicopters, perhaps irrationally so, since he didn’t like flying on planes. The lizard part of his brain had always associated choppers with evac, with getting free. Even when it wasn’t always the case. Soaking in the feel of the engine helped. He looked through the scope again, with steadier hands. The vans were close enough to the gates now that the guards had noticed them coming. 

Judging from the sudden panicky swarming, the alarm had been sounded. Showtime. 

Overhead, the Mortensen Inc cargo plane banked, flying low, its loading door sliding open. The first round of barrels were pitched out, tumbling for a second before exploding into large bursts of orange plumes on the ground, lit dimly against the few lights in the fort. Goodnight jerked back in surprise with a horrified gasp that got a startled query from the cockpit. 

“Fuckin’ _chlorine gas?_ ” Goodnight hissed under his breath. “Oh for God’s sake, Billy.” The cargo plane was going for another run, crossing over, dropping the last of its deadly hoard. More bursts of orange. Distant screams, carrying over the desert night. 

He felt dizzily sick, all of a sudden, so nauseous that it took him a moment to register Chisolm’s voice in the comms, all harsh barks of “ _Masks on! Go! Go!_ ” and the heavy vans ramming the steel gates, slewing through as the hinges gave. It was hard to concentrate. Goodnight felt suspended, between cradling his .300 in a helicopter above a drug baron’s hacienda and being in 2007 all over again, months before he shipped back home for the last time, truck bombs and gun battles in Fallujah, God, the screams from wounded children that quickly faded to terrible choking sounds, the animal panic in the air and the dust and the _smell_ and the orange smoke, a woman’s wailing cry, breaking higher and higher— 

“Goody!” Chisolm snapped. “Cover fire, Goody!” 

Goodnight tried to concentrate, he really did, but his vision still felt like it was swimming, he could almost see children scattering away from the plumes, coughing and clawing at their eyes. The suicide bombers, coming to die, everyone crazy with hatred, everyone _crazy_. He touched trembling fingers to his earpiece. “Masks _on_? Did you know about this, Sam? Did you—“

“Eyes on the prize, _sergeant_ ,” Chisolm growled, voice a little muffled, speaking under a gas mask. “Cover fire. Now.” 

He couldn’t. He couldn’t. Goodnight felt like his heart was going a mile a minute. He couldn’t even tell where the vans were. Where _anyone_ was. The distant screams seemed to fade in and out to something worse, something closer. Goodnight clutched at his chest, bent over his rifle. Dimly, he could hear Billy talking, crisp and unconcerned. “His rifle probably malfunctioned.” 

“What the fuck? That’s the lamest excuse I’ve heard,” Faraday scoffed, if breathlessly. Gunfire crackled through the earpiece behind his voice, making Goodnight flinch and bite down on a whimper. Pitched gunfight in Fallujah. Goodnight hadn’t been in a good vantage point, he’d only really been passing by in a convoy. One of his men had gotten shot in the gut, a kid, first tour, _eighteen_ , sobbing and crying for his mother as he fouled his pants— 

“Shut up and shoot more, _guero_ ,” Vasquez snapped, and the comm picked up Billy somewhere further on, swearing in Korean. Goodnight had never heard that before, not from elegant, forever tightly composed Billy. Somewhere down there, Billy was under fire. And he couldn’t help, same way he’d never been able to save everyone, and— 

“Sergeant,” Chisolm said flatly. “ _Sergeant_!” 

“Sir, yes sir,” Goodnight answered, his mouth on auto. 

“Do you have visual on our location?” 

“Sam, I can’t, I can’t—”

“ _Do you have visual._ ” 

“Chisolm—” that was Billy, before abruptly cutting off again into swearing, the gunfire crackling closer and closer and closer— 

Red cut in, his voice tense but calm. “They’re flanking us.” 

Around. Flanking. Goodnight breathed out, and in, focusing on the last order that had sunk in to the part of him that had spent years following orders. _Do you have visual_. That was easy. Goodnight could do easy. Around the lights in the camp, the orange smoke still billowed, keeping those who’d been caught up in out of commission, but there was heavy fire near the inner gate, where the vans had come to a stop. Some sort of trap on the ground, maybe. Chisolm and the others had taken cover between the vans and the low wall towards the hacienda. Goodnight breathed in. Out. Points on a board. He focused, almost dreamily, setting the stock to his shoulder. 

Once, years ago, he remembered a reporter asking a sniper in Goodnight’s unit what he felt when he shot a terrorist. The soldier had smiled, and winked at Goodnight, who’d been close by, and drawled, _recoil_. He would be dead in a month, in an ambush north of Baghdad.

Recoil. That’s all it had to be. He fired. Cold shot, went wide. No spotter, but he could see a pot shatter. Next shot came easier, the lizard part of his brain taking over. The pale green spot dropped. The rifle kicked his shoulder. He breathed in. Out. He could feel the meditative mood come in, the hyper-aware stillness. Shells tinkled by his feet as he killed, and he reloaded on instinct. “ _Holy shit he’s good_ ,” Faraday breathed at one point, only for Chisolm to bark, “Keep moving, _move, move_!” 

The bright points that were Chisolm and the others moved under cover, out of sight. “Circle around,” Goodnight told the pilot, and braced himself as the helicopter started to turn. He took out someone on the second floor walkway, then another through a window. 

A shot whistled somewhere past. “They’re shooting back,” the pilot told him calmly, in thickly accented English. Clearly, this wasn’t his first kinetic op.

“Yeah, I noticed.” A man with a rag tied around his mouth charged out of a ground floor door and died. Recoil. 

“We’re clear,” Chisolm said into the comms. “Goody, hold position. Keep ‘em busy.” 

“No,” Billy snapped, “he’s done enough. He’s going back to HQ.” 

“Hold position, _sergeant_.” Chisolm said crisply. 

Goodnight glanced over at the pilot, but Jun-seo was clearly waiting for _his_ instructions. “Sir, holdin’ position,” Goodnight decided. He could hear Billy start to object. “Better keep movin’, Billy.” Billy spat something in Korean over the comms over the sound of gunfire, then went quiet. 

In the encampment, the chlorine gas was already starting to dissipate. The guards were getting organised, coming out of cover, trying to head towards the hacienda. Recoil. Reload. People scurried for cover. More shots whistled past. Goodnight couldn’t tell how close. “Keep circlin’,” he told the pilot, and the chopper dipped, engine picking up as it started to move. Goodnight breathed in, out. Two men who had gotten up to the stalled vans died where they stood, slumping against the wheels. He shot another man through a hacienda window, then another pale green blot who’d tried jinking out of cover towards the low stone wall. 

“They’ve got rockets,” the pilot said, as something screeched past, its tail bright in night vision. 

“Get higher,” Goodnight commanded, then flinched as something holed the hull just inches away from him. “Shit!” Holes stitched their way down towards the tail, and then the ground heaved under his feet, the helicopter fishtailing wildly. “Pilot!” Goodnight barked, scrabbling at the deck, just in time to see the body slumped over the flight stick, _fuck_ , impact, falling—

—out into the empty night, the endless sky, the chopper’s tail engulfed in fire and smoke, his fingers instinctively groping for the parachute’s quick release, _too close_ , the air punching out of his lungs as the risers unfurled. The spinning rotors were close, far too close, just missing the cells but slicing through suspension lines, one, two, more, then he was clear, but the ground was coming up faster than it should be, even as Goodnight tried his best to steer away from the downed chopper, get higher. Too close. Ground up. Impact. For a second, Goodnight desperately tried to stay conscious, not to be a fuck up, for Chisolm. For Billy. Then the world spun away, cloudless.

#

This was more awesome than Faraday could’ve imagined. Ramming the gates, pitched firefights… even the sweaty, albeit brief discomfort of the gas mask didn’t faze him. The masks were strapped back on their hips now that they were indoors, a nice reprieve, though they were pinned again in a corridor, the enemy shooting at them behind a sturdy upturned table and a pillar. Not a problem for the best trick shooter in the business. Faraday pinged a ricochet off a window grille. Behind the table, someone yelled. Billy darted over their cover, diving through the door on his back, guns up, firing two precise shots, then again, through his legs at whoever it was behind the table. Then he pushed himself one-handed up and back on his feet like a dancer.

“Clear.”

“Show-off,” Faraday laughed. Billy rolled his eyes. It felt weird having Ethel and Maria outfitted with silencers, though he knew they needed it. God, he’d forgotten how loud handguns were indoors. He was in Vasquez’s team, with Billy and Teddy. Somewhere on the other side of the building were the others. Teddy was hopeless, tending to cringe rather than shoot, but Billy and Vasquez more than made up for it, scarily so. 

They circled around into the new corridor. Across on the other side, facing them over the inner garden, a man leaned out of a window with a carbine, only to suddenly jerk backwards, slumping out of sight. “Damn,” Faraday whistled. “Your boyfriend’s stealing all the fun.”

“Shut up,” Billy growled. “Keep moving.” 

He ducked behind a pillar as someone fired at them from the garden, but Faraday was already shooting back, through the thin sliver of flesh that the palm trees didn’t cover. Below, the shooter fell out of cover, clutching at his leg, and Vasquez shot him calmly in the head, then another one running for cover. Someone else screamed through a window. Chaos behind them, shouts and yells from the camp and scattered gunfire. Everything _stank_ , that was the part that Faraday hadn’t expected, cordite of course, but also blood and voided bellies and vomit. The floor was slippery with it. Billy shot someone who burst out of a door in front of them and knifed another through an open window. Behind Faraday, Teddy whimpered, flinching.

“Just stay with me, kid,” Faraday told him. 

They caught up with the others on the top floor, where Bogue was holding out, couches and tables overturned, offices shut beyond. “They’re waiting for a chopper,” Chisolm shouted over the gunfire. “We don’t have much time—” 

“Ah, fuck.” Vasquez whistled. Through one of the windows, something was spinning out of the air, belching fire, crashing into the desert. Beside Faraday, the blood drained out of Billy’s face. 

“Billy… _Billy!_ ” Faraday made a grab for Billy’s shoulder, but he was shaken off, Billy darting away back down the stairs. 

“Let him go,” Chisolm said curtly. 

“He won’t make it past camp on his own,” Vasquez disagreed, reloading his CZs behind an upturned desk. 

“If anyone could it’d be him. And we can’t afford to go after him.” Chisolm fired over cover, missing the first shot, taking out someone on the second. “Horne and Red are downstairs, slowing down any reinforcements. They’ll have cleared things out some.” 

Emma reloaded, leaning out with her rifle. She got the man behind an office door, and ducked hastily as gunshots studded themselves into her desk. It was ugly after that, gaining ground, kill after kill until Bogue retreated into his big office, babbling something, Chisolm and Emma on his heels. Cautiously, Faraday got to his feet, Vasquez beside him. Teddy was still crouched in a corner, hands clapped over his ears. 

“Check that they’re dead,” Vasquez said briskly, as they went around the desks that they’d taken cover with. Beyond, there was the abrupt crack of a rifle being fired. 

Faraday grinned, shaking his head, about to say something about hell and a woman scorned when a man ducked through the door. He moved on instinct. Vasquez yelped as Faraday shoved him bodily out of the way, drawing Ethel as he did. Two shots in the chest. The man tumbled, the grenade in his hand rolling to the floor behind the desks by his feet. The world seemed to slow, going molasses slow, the click of metal on stone, the sudden ringing roar, furniture flying, impact punching Faraday back, glass shattering, throwing him against a heavy cabinet like a ragdoll. His ears were ringing, he was gulping smoke, his _hands_ , God, those bloody splinters in his palms, something broken— 

Vasquez was yelling something that he couldn’t hear, trying to haul him to his feet. Faraday put his weight on one foot, attempting to reorient himself, then he cursed as his leg seemed to fold under him with a bright shock of pain. Big hands caught him, hauling one arm over a shoulder, holding him up. In the corner of his eyes, Faraday could see Emma rushing out of the office, wide-eyed as she took in the ruin. The world seemed to dip in and out of gray, but somehow, Faraday hung on, as Chisolm motioned them forward. Against him, Vasquez seemed immovable, forcing him forward, one step at a time, as they headed down the stairs, past Teddy’s body, poor bastard, to the second floor.

“Don’t,” Faraday gasped, once his hearing cleared out, “don’t leave me here.” 

“Shut up and walk, _mijo_ ,” Vasquez gritted out, his hand tightening in Faraday’s belt, firing with his free hand to cap someone across the balcony. Cordite and cigarette smoke and leather. “Not leaving you anywhere.”

Somehow they made it down to the courtyard, Vasquez towing Faraday along, Emma taking up the rear, Chisolm in front. They found Red at the hacienda’s car park, exchanging fire with people at the garden. “Horne didn’t make it,” Red told them soberly, as Vasquez loaded Faraday into the back of an SUV. Keys were already in the ignition. Useful. Vasquez was already climbing in to the driver’s seat, with a questioning glance at Chisolm. 

“Just go,” Chisolm told him. “Get clear. Get Faraday some help.” 

“ _¡Vaya con Dios_ ,” Vasquez called back, and spun the car out out of the parking slot, speeding around. Lying on the back seat, still dazed, Faraday couldn’t see where they were going. Suspended between consciousness and the dark, he couldn’t really seem to care. _Not leaving you anywhere_ , Vasquez had said, fierce and low. It was the first time anyone had ever said something like that to Faraday, and somehow, he could believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> click on to the epilogue :)
> 
> Notes:  
> It seems Marine sniper school is actually far more advanced than the Army one in Benning, Chris Kyle is a SEAL etc. There’s another specialist Army school, SOTIC, but seems that’s very exclusive, mostly staffed by Sergeant First Class etc. I wanted to keep Goodnight as general Army because of his canon character, but researching this is really going far down the rabbit hole, and all I really wanted to know was what Goodnight’s probable rank was going to be, so SOTIC peeps it is.
> 
> Some refs: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Oot-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT191&lpg=PT191&dq=SOTIC+army+school&source=bl&ots=Ds4h2CySBg&sig=cEQy185c2HVMlh3eSTY50Upmf78&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipzq-B54PQAhWGJ5QKHYaqAsEQ6AEIPzAF#v=onepage&q=SOTIC%20army%20school&f=false
> 
> Recoil story: mm from some yahoo discussion somewhere about the best sniper school


	10. Chapter 10

2017

They came to a stop when it was dark out, off road somewhere, God knew where. Mountains in the distance, flat land everywhere, nothing but the sky and stars around them. Vasquez made a small fire near the car, heating up some beans, and Faraday lay on his bedroll, staring up at the stars. “Thirty-seven years old,” Faraday said out aloud, “and I’m living like Jesse James.”

Vasquez sniffed. “We should go back south,” he grumbled. “More and more south, past Mexico. Your NSA soon have more and more power. Time of living like ‘American outlaw’ is long past. And I know the ground better in the south. We can lose the cartels.”

“I’ve never been that way before.” Faraday turned the thought carefully over in his mind. “Hell, I’d never left ‘merica before until that job.”

“Oh? Would be interesting for you then.” 

“I don’t like that word anymore. ‘Interesting’.” Faraday held up his left palm, briefly blotting out the sky, the fingertips still shaken with occasional tremors. “At least we got paid,” he murmured, more to himself than Vasquez. The words felt a little hollow. Still, even though recovery had been painful and frustrating and slow, Faraday wasn’t sure if he’d have made any different choices. When Chisolm had shown up in prison, offering him a way out, however dodgy it sounded… 

“You did well, _mijo_. For a first time.” 

That was new. Faraday eyed Vasquez curiously, dropping his palm. “Usually you lecture me about how I shouldn’t have gone.” 

Vasquez shrugged. “You shouldn’t have gone. But you still good. Someday maybe good again. Maybe not. But you are free now, no? To me, better than prison.”

“To me as well,” Faraday decided, because being on the run wasn’t so bad, not with Vasquez there and everywhere in the world to go. Broken down as he was. They had dinner, and afterwards, Vasquez lay comfortably beside him, bedroll to bedroll, watching the stars. 

“My _abuela_ loved the stars,” Vasquez said abruptly, pointing up. “There. Antares.” 

“I could never see any of them patterns,” Faraday admitted, and beside him, Vasquez chuckled, shaking softly. 

“Not me also. But I would pretend to see. Made the old lady happy. She like to tell old stories. Of Tloque Nahuaque, creating the earth and the stars and the animals. Of the first earth, which was destroyed. The second earth, also destroyed.” 

“I’m beginning to see a really depressing theme in your stories.” Faraday squinted up at the sky, trying to see some kind of pattern, a connect-the-dots design. “So you’re trying to tell me, if the earth gets destroyed yet again, it ain’t like it’s never happened before?” 

Vasquez shrugged. “Depends on what you think. Most people think too much about who they are. About where they are in the world. One person in this world is nothing. If they know that they will be happier.” 

“I kinda think accepting that fact would make you _less_ happy, not the other way ‘round. Who wants to feel insignificant?” 

“You are very American,” Vasquez said. He sounded amused, even as he leaned over to nuzzle Faraday’s cheek. “This is the problem with your people. You want to feel special. _American exceptionalism_ , no? Even your government think so.” 

“Some of us are just stating facts here,” Faraday said, and a year ago he would’ve cracked that quip with a wink and a smirk. Now, it felt wan coming out of his mouth. Worn down. 

“If you see life as a series of things to win and to lose you will only go crazy, _mijo_. Life is life. You wake up and do things and go to sleep. There is no score. There is only what you think. The more you think that life has to have meaning, the more you drive yourself crazy.” 

“That’s a… surprisingly… simple way to look at everything. Possibly also why you always seem to be in so much trouble.” 

Vasquez grinned at him, that feral, reckless grin. “Maybe.” 

“And I’d have to disagree. Seeing as we killed Bogue, mission accomplished and all that, I’d say that was a win.” 

Vasquez was already shaking his head. “We are alive and he is dead. That is all that changed. We were like the wind, blowing over the land, passing on. No one ‘wins’. Everyone lose. Just some people lose more than others.” 

“Maybe,” Faraday conceded, uncomfortable now. “You kinda… in the drive up to Bogue’s. You looked to me like you liked that kinda thing. A gunfight. Said it was the best way to feel alive.” 

“Eh,” Vasquez chuckled. “It is a bad habit.” 

“What? _Gunfighting_?” 

“Trouble. Always, with the trouble.” Vasquez turned onto his flank, his hand splaying lightly on Faraday’s belly, thumb hooked over the belt. “Someday it will be too much. That is the price. Someday I will pay it.” 

“I think you got no right to call anyone ‘loco’, my friend,” Faraday said slowly, and Vasquez smirked, still smirking as Faraday dragged him close enough to kiss. 

Vasquez was right. In this life, nobody did ever get away with anything. The bad dreams would never go away. Faraday might never shoot straight again. But if that was the price _Faraday_ paid, to live like this under the stars, with Vasquez nosing lower, rumbling, hands stealing up under Faraday’s shirt—then he would pay it again if he had to. Today, tomorrow and the next.

#

Goodnight saw the car coming first, a rented Ford sedan, puffing its way along the winding road towards their driveway. Beside him, Abbie wagged her tail excitedly, letting out a bark until Goodnight absently shushed her, patting the heeler mix’s blue and gray scruff. Behind him somewhere, he could hear Billy make a low noise by the window, grated out behind gritted teeth, and Goodnight sighed.

“If you shoot him, I’m gonna be real upset.” 

Billy muttered something darkly in Korean and went quiet. The car came to a stop near the bottom of their driveway, and Chisolm got out, still head to toe in a black dress shirt and pants, even in the heat. He smiled as he came up the path towards them, pausing when Abbie darted over, tail wagging, to sniff at his fingers, then he sat down beside Goodnight when Goodnight patted the space on the bench beside him. 

“Do I wanna know how you found us?” Goodnight inquired, closing the book in his lap as Abbie danced around the bench, peered into the kitchen window as if to check on Billy, then threw herself at Goodnight’s feet, panting and overstimulated. 

“I’ve always had a knack of finding people who don’t want to be found. That’s why I got headhunted into the CIA.” Chisolm studied him, probably taking in the faint tan, the neatly trimmed beard, everything but looking at the oddly draped fabric over where his left leg had been from the knee down. He’d left the prosthetic leg and his cane propped against his side of the bench. “You look well,” Chisolm decided. 

“I’m keepin’.” Chisolm looked thinner, older. There was an unformed soberness to him, a distracted look to his eyes that reminded Goodnight of a funeral, years ago, of a man so choked up at a wake that he couldn’t finish his eulogy. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine. Been trying to keep busy.” 

“Back into the CIA?” 

“No, no. Been helping out near home. With the local Church. Pastor was real insistent. Stubborn old man.” 

“That comin’ from you?” Goodnight chuckled. 

“Real stubborn.” Chisolm stared at his hands. “I had to talk to someone, Goody. All of you disappeared after… what we did, and after I got paid, I went home and sat for a while, thinking. In the end, I talked to the pastor.”

“All right,” Goodnight said cautiously. “Might’ve been… did he sort you out?” 

“There’s no sorting out what happened,” Chisolm disagreed quietly. “Once I told you that life grinds you down, that eventually you’ve just got to keep moving. I tried praying, at first. Then I tried working, doing more for the CIA. Then I quit, tried to work for myself. When Emma came to me, I didn’t want to walk down that path at first, I swear. I knew what would come of it. I’ve been down a hundred versions of that road before, with a hundred different reasons.”

“But you walked down it regardless.” 

“Felt like I’d tried everything else. And I guess. I knew someday I was gonna walk down it anyway. I’d kept things in place, just in case. Had a plan brewing in my head.” 

“And you knew who you needed.” 

“Yeah.” Chisolm looked him in the eye at least, evenly. “I knew who I needed.” 

“So what did the pastor say?” 

Chisolm glanced away, over the gentle plains, at the distant craggy peaks of the French Alps, and opened his palms up for the warmth of the Provençal sun. “Said that what I did was between me and God, most of it. But for the rest that ain’t, it’s between me and you, and Red, and Billy, and Vasquez and Faraday, wherever the hell they are. Haven’t found them yet. He said that since I hauled you all along on this road, I should at least check in, see where the rest of you have gotten. So this is me. Checking in.” 

“Seems like you do a lot of that for me,” Goodnight told him, with a faint, wan smile. When Chisolm said nothing, Goodnight exhaled, shifting back on the bench, patting Abbie when she nudged her head hopefully onto his lap. “I’m fine, Sam. Billy and I are fine.” 

“Yeah?” Chisolm raised an eyebrow. “That why my shoulderblades keep itching?” 

“Well,” Goodnight said lightly, “Billy’s still a little upset with you—” There was an incredulous laugh from the kitchen. “—to say the least,” Goodnight amended. “But I didn’t just stay and help because of him. Not at first. Annie and Ella and your mum were the closest thing to family that I had for a while. As were you. I couldn’t turn my back on that.” He patted Chisolm on the shoulder. “But they’re gone, Sam. They’ve been gone for years. You’ve done all that you can. Let it go.” 

Chisolm glanced over his shoulder, then back at Goodnight. “I ain’t here about me,” he said, lowering his voice. “You sure you’re all right?” 

“There ain’t ever an easy answer to that. Not for me. Or for you, neither.” 

“Mrs Sheffield’s keeping an eye on your house for you,” Chisolm said mildly, always with his instinct for the weak point. “In case you ever feel like getting back.” 

“It’ll keep,” Goodnight said, as firmly as he could. Later, as the sedan rumbled back down to the road, Billy slipped out of the house, frowning as he settled down beside Goodnight, in a loosely buttoned shirt and slacks that hugged his long legs. 

“We should move.” Billy muttered. “I didn’t think he would find us.”

“To where this time? Don’t say your island.” 

“Defensible position. Off radar,” Billy pointed out. Beside Goodnight, Abbie wagged her tail cautiously. In her doggie hierarchy, she’d clearly decided that she was Goodnight’s dog, but Billy fit somewhere above that, to be worshipped but treated carefully. Some days, Goodnight could sympathise. 

“Nothin’ stoppin’ you from livin’ there,” Goodnight told him, and Billy sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Or leavin’ me here while you head out to kill people. Heaven knows you used to do it before, just that I didn’t know it.” 

Billy shook his head, grumbling in Korean. He was restless. Goodnight could see that. A year of nursing Goodnight through recovery and all the new nightmares that had come with it had worn Billy’s nerves down to the bone. Years ago, Goodnight had felt that they fit perfectly together. Now he knew better. There was no _fitting together_ with anyone, not for Goodnight. There were too many torn edges. 

“I’m serious,” Goodnight tried anyway. “If you have to go. Go. I’ll be fine. Just… just come back after.” 

Beyond, the sedan had finally driven out of sight. Billy glanced at the road, hands clenching in his lap. “Should’ve let me kill him,” he said sourly. 

“If you need to work that kinda thing out of your system, I told you, go ahead and take a contract,” Goodnight said stiffly. 

“That’s not what I need to ‘work’ out of my ‘system’,” Billy said sharply. “So stop saying it.” 

“Then what?” Goodnight challenged. At this point, usually Billy would glare at him but back down, retreat somewhere until either Goodnight felt bad enough to apologise or until there was some kinda mutually agreed ceasefire where they pretended the argument hadn’t happened. 

Today, though, Billy grit his teeth. “I thought I watched you _die_. Three times. When I saw the helicopter go down. When I made it out of the camp and found you bleeding and unresponsive. When they had to operate on your leg in Juárez and you were losing so much blood—”

Goodnight hauled Billy over, kissing him hard on the mouth, trying to climb onto Billy’s lap. The book tumbled off as Billy caught him, one hand under what was left of his left leg, the other gently easing Goodnight up. His mended ribs still ached, but it was worth it, to feel Billy relax reluctantly against him, for those elegant hands to stroke urgently up his back then settle for kneading his ass. 

“I didn’t die,” Goodnight said forcefully, in the compressed space between them. “Though in the days after I wished I had. Every time I woke up and you weren’t there and I convinced myself you’d finally left me. Every time you came back on whatever business you had in Juárez and I saw the way you looked at me, ‘cos I’d become an even bigger burden—”

It was Billy’s turn to pull him down, to cut him off. The kiss was gentler, Billy licking against him, murmuring “Shh, shh,” and stroking his arms. Goodnight hadn’t even realized that he had been shaking. Shit. “I’ve never thought of you as a burden,” Billy said quietly. “Don’t say that.” 

“Well, you should,” Goodnight said belligerently. “Because I—mpfth—” he gasped, in between breaths and Billy's slanting kisses, “—a one-legged—“ 

This time, Billy kissed him until Goodnight gave in, until he relaxed, a little dizzy. “This is why I didn’t want you to go to war,” Billy said finally. “You were starting to get better. Now you’re back to where you were before.” 

“Billy, me backslidin’ ain’t because of Sam. Ain’t ‘cos of you, neither,” Goodnight added quickly. “Just that everythin’ felt hopeless again and—” He sucked in a tight breath. “I just didn’t know where to go from there. Didn’t blame you for leavin’.” 

“I know,” Billy said quietly. “You always blame yourself for everything. Even when you shouldn’t. The fact is,” he murmured, as Goodnight shuddered and pressed his cheek over Billy’s shoulder, “nothing in life is without consequences. I knew that when I decided to do what I do. Someday it will come home to me. Mistakes. Enemies. And I thought I could arrange it such that you wouldn’t be there when it does. You asked me why I couldn’t just stop. That has consequences too.” 

“Let them come,” Goodnight said fiercely, and leaned up to kiss Billy when Billy started to object, until Billy was silent and thoughtful again, his hands gentle on Goodnight’s hips. Goodnight pressed his mouth to Billy’s ear, breathing deep. “ _C’est lui pour moi_ ,” he began, and felt Billy flinch against him, then relax. “ _Moi pour lui dans la vie._ ”

Billy said nothing, for a while, his eyes closed, seemingly in perfect balance with the world. Goodnight knew better now. “ _Pour la vie_ ,” Billy said finally, his lips turned against Goodnight’s throat. “Against whatever may come.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent
> 
> At some point no long-term reader of mine is ever going to believe me anymore when I say that maybe I’m not going to write a happy ending… … XD;; Also. Finally this is over. Nano tomorrow. Good luck everyone! 
> 
> Notes:  
> In Ethan Hawke’s Other 2016 Western, In a Valley of Violence, he plays an ex-Army marksman with PTSD… yes, that’s right, lol. I watched it. It’s not well-written to say the least, has approximately the same plot as John Wick, and I think the only reason I found it entertaining was because I watched it with another Goodnight x Billy fangirl. The dog’s name in the Western is Abbie. Here’s the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFD4f1_eZno
> 
> More La Vie en Rose lyrics:  
> C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie: It's him for me, me for him in life  
> Pour la vie: Forever/for life  
> and of course the queen herself, Edith Piaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzeLynj1GYM
> 
> And check out this modern AU! fanvid by bachaboska: :D  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r219eMUkhNY

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [our doubts are traitors](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409733) by [astoryaboutwar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astoryaboutwar/pseuds/astoryaboutwar)




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